Harry and the Botched Cult Ritual
by Kithrin
Summary: Harry is kidnapped and subjected to a ritual by a large group of cultists, and three servants were bound to him, and due to an incompetent drunkard the wrong forms were filled out when one applied for custody resulting in an engagement. The Dursley's would be horrified that Harry became happy due to it.Warning, massive amount of death in first chapter. Harry/Rider/Avenger/Lancer.
1. Chapter 1: Insane cultists are crazy

Harry and the Botched Cult Ritual.

AN: This idea was eating me.

Chapter 1: Insane cultists are crazy.

A young boy was lying naked in the center of a ritual circle on an altar, bound spread-eagled, with three symbols carved into his chest, and wearing a blindfold, a very old one. The people who had broken into the place he lived, and kidnapped him, and those he was forced to call a family, and placed him into that position, all the while claiming that he should be proud to be chosen as the offering to their dark god. 

There were twenty-four other abducted people of all ages and genders, as well as seventy-two cultists, and the cult leader.

The ritual they were about to perform required forty-nine sacrifices, one to be the offering and the rest split between willing and unwilling sacrifices. 

Harry was chosen to be the offering as they thought his scar made him special.

As the cultists began chanting, butchering ten languages, from Latin to Klingon, some facts should be brought to light. 

Like how Harry was the only person there with even a drop of magic, or that the ritual was created entirely by the insane cult leader, while he was on at least three different mind-altering substances. 

Those facts alone should have made the results of the ritual being forty-nine dead people after the leader killed the 'offering' in a fit of rage when nothing happened, and a large mess being left behind for the warehouse workers to find and report in the morning.

That is what _should_ have happened, but the leader had done _some_ homework and chose a location that had been rumored to be the site of a major ritual a hundred years ago. He was right, and the ritual circle was intact underneath the warehouse floor, as it was carved into a sheet of solid stone, and the non-magicals that built the place had ignored it. 

A circle that was at the convergence of two major, and three minor leylines.

This would again not mean anything, except that the circle was set towards sacrificial rituals, and forty-eight people, even non-magicals, being sacrificed in seconds was more than enough to activate the array, which was set to summon spirits, using a random animal, the larger the animal, or animals, the longer the spirit could linger. 

The overcharged ritual reached outwards through time and space, and towards the focal point, the young boy.

The marks on the boy glowed, each a different color. A warm purple, a cool blue, and an ominous red. The marks then shifted, causing the cultists to continue their chant, as they were finally getting results, after failing six other times. (EN)

A massive explosion of smoke and light shook the warehouse and blew the roof off. 

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The roof, being flung with such might, flew many miles, only to knock out an old man in hideous robes when it landed, but that's not important. 

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In said old man's office, there were explosions, as delicate instruments self-destructed, as they couldn't handle the load. 

Interestingly the last one that exploded made noises that if translated into English would be, "Muskrat custard error."

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Wards shattered at the Dursley household, and the loose magic followed the thread to whom it was bound to, adding to the screw up that was the cultist ritual.

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The ritual broke through time and space, to a place never accessed from that reality, and touched 'three' beings.

It did not grab them and drag them to the location.

In fact, it was more a hand of invitation, one that they could easily refuse.

The invitation was actually offered to a few beforehand and was refused. 

A golden king thought it was beneath him.

A childlike assassin wasn't interested. 

A saber thought he wouldn't do a good job of it.

The archer was thought it would be too much of a pain.

The magic, guided by what remained of the blood wards, touched a berserker, shuddered, and then withdrew the invitation. (EN2)

The young, physically between fourteen, and sixteen, year old lancer accepted. She had long purple hair and was wearing what looked like a well armored magical girl outfit.

An adult rider accepted her long purple hair, and skimpy black dress with holes cut in her side, and to show her rather impressive cleavage, as well as her calf-length black stockings, all of her clothes, had purple bands on them.

The last nearly made the magic withdraw the offer again, but something stopped it. The other two that had accepted made it seem to be unable to withdraw quickly. This one being seemed to be the exact opposite of what the magic was reaching for. She was inhumane in appearance, with her clawed hands and feet, the scales on her forearms and mid-thigh down, her long snake-like tail, the way portions of her hair clumped up to end in a total of five snakeheads, and her wings. Her scales, claws, and wings were golden in color. She was wearing a skimpy white dress.

The being felt the invitation and accepted in her role as servant avenger before the magic could change its mind.

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In another realm, a vampire started laughing for no reason, scaring almost everybody in the clocktower.

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In a realm where aspects dwell, a being had a grade ninety-two hangover. 

Someone's destiny didn't just derail, it derailed, chugged across twelve other tracks knocking five other destiny's off _their_ rails, landed on a roller-coaster, was sent flying as it rocketed off the track, landed neatly in a newly spawned rail track, and chugged merrily on its way. 

The being decided to take a vacation, and left a note that it was going to the beach.

Ten minutes later it's superior dragged it back and told it to at least track down who, and where things just went screwy.

The being cried, he probably wouldn't get it's vacation for at least twenty millennia, as tracking down a single fate with an infinite amount of important people in the multiverse takes a lot of time, well first step first, is the who, then the what version of the who, then the easiest at that point, the why. 

It would find the issue to be easier than he thought, but still very hard.

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Back at the ritual sight the three beings that emerged from the light and smoke, felt their bonds solidify on the ten-year-old boy strapped to the altar, at the same time they felt their energies being drawn from the earth. They would still fade quickly without the boy, but he wouldn't be straining to support them. 

"Dark Goddesses, please accept the offering we supplied, and bless us with your dark power," the leaser said while kneeling. After all, if his god decided to appear as three women, who was he to argue? 

The inhumane one walked up to him, and he braced himself to receive his blessing.

Instead, her snakeheads ripped the man apart and devoured him. 

The oldest, human looking one, went to unstrap the boy, but she kept the blindfold on, as he didn't need to see the monstrous woman tearing apart, and eating the cultists, and the young lancer who was using her scythe to cut down the cultists.

Such violence wasn't for young eyes.

She took him out from the warehouse, and the sleepy boy, now that he was feeling warm and safe in the woman's embrace, told her where he lived in a sleepy voice before he passed out, when she asked.

The woman would wait for her fellow servants before heading there.

Upon entering the house, in the now almost entirely depopulated street, as the cultists had killed everybody in the street that they could find that they didn't need, so as to minimize witnesses.

The three awake females looked around the trashed house and decided that it would be something to take care of in the morning. 

Then police sirens sounded, as someone that lived just outside the 'kill zone' on the way to the home, had reported three women, carrying a naked boy, were heading in that direction.

Placing the boy on the couch, the woman headed outside to handle the police, with a mostly true story.

The monstrous woman headed upstairs to sleep in the master bedroom, the room had been raided, and the mattress slashed, but after flipping it the woman just went to sleep.

The young one, scavenged some blankets for the boy, and stayed downstairs in case she needed to grab their master, wake the other servant, and make a quick getaway, or help her fellow servant by supporting her story.

She wasn't stupid, she knew the identity of the other human-looking woman. It was obvious. The monster woman, she wasn't sure of but had a sinking suspicion. 

To be fair, the other two were the same, but nobody had said anything about it.

She hoped she was wrong, but at least if she was right, she was at least guaranteed that _she_ wouldn't end up like that.

Well as a servant at least.

The older woman came in and sat in a ruined chair, across from the one the lancer sat in, and said, "The police accepted the story that we found him after the cultists performed their ritual, and I helped him escape as they all started being killed. I also gave them the location of the warehouse.

"They said we could stay here for now, as the owners are dead, and he lived here, but we need to be able to pay the upkeep, get new furniture, and clothes. It's a good thing that being summoned gives us the information of the culture of the area. Tomorrow I will go to this ministry of magic, and get us set up as guardians for him, get Ids for you and me, I doubt she would need them, but I'll get her one as well, and to see if he has some sort of trust vault, or insurance from the other three, for us to use to help him," the older one explained while looking tired. It wasn't the walk or summoning that did so, it was the talking to the police, as she didn't want to let too much slip. 

"I take it I'm on babysitting, and monster watch duty?" the younger said wryly. 

"Careful, you know that's how we ended up in life."

"Can't you let me have my delusions? Bad enough I apparently grew up and lost my ideal beauty."

The older just sighed, recognizing the truth of those words. She had often felt that the small cute looks of her sisters were the ideal, and she had lost it as the only 'mortal' of the three. Of course thanks to the information given her, she was ironically closer to the current day's vision of beauty. 

The next day started bright and early, and the eldest human form servant was out of the house, to head towards the ministry to get the papers, so they could be filled out and turned in the same day. She also had pictures taken of herself, the monster woman, and the youngest servant with a Polaroid camera that was in the house, and scavenged some money from some hidey holes throughout the house, the largest stash under a floorboard in the master bedroom.

She didn't know where the three pairs of glasses that were in a package on the doorstep came from, why they suppressed her eyes, or why the hell the package had her name on it, but she was grateful for them, less questions about wearing glasses, than wearing a blindfold.

The monstrous servant was already up and searching through the fridge for something to eat. 

She found a motorcycle and some keys in the next door neighbor's house and borrowed them. 

Her riding skill allowed her to use the machine like a master, and avoid suspicion from the police.

Upon entering the ministry, and getting a badge that read Rider, Adoption. She passed the table at the front without a fuss because she didn't have a wand to check. The on-duty Auror assumed she was magical despite that because she was able to find and enter the building without help. 

After getting the location of the office she needed she simply headed there, ignoring the disdainful or appreciative looks her outfit attracted.

Finding the right door she entered the Department of Engagements and Adoption.

The first thing to hit her was the smell. The place stunk like a liqueur store. The second was the amount of parchment that was in the room.

The third was the obviously smashed third cousin of Lucius Malfoy.

Walking up to the man, the servant said, "I need the papers to become the magical guardian of a child, as well as papers for my two... erm... sisters?" she finished hesitantly, not sure how to describe the situation with her fellow servants.

The man looked at the woman drunkenly, and synapses fired wrongly, and a lecherous look came over his face as he interpreted the request as only a drunk, horny male could.

Either that or what was about to happen was an honest drunken mistake.

He grabbed three copies of what he thought was the right paperwork, and an instruction sheet for the paperwork, as some of the paperwork was intentionally made too complex, so cheat sheets were created for the more complicated ones.

Instead of, for instance, rewriting the paperwork to make it easier.

He also handed her a one-day contract quill, it would dissolve twenty-four hours after it left the ministry, and was used to painlessly write signatures in blood. 

Rider was also informed that the papers would flash gold if they were accepted, silver if they needed to come in or dissolve if the participants were ineligible. 

A quick trip to the ID department, witch the muggleborn at the desk accepted the muggle money that Rider found under a floorboard in the Dursley house, the witch would put enough galleons in to cover the cost, that equaled around eighty percent of the mundane money she obtained, three Ids using the pictures Rider took that mourning, and the assurances that they would be legal by the end of the day.

After getting home, she found the youngest of the trio comforting the boy, with the monster lying on the couch watching.

"Master, what's wrong?" she asked.

"What's going to happen to me?" The boy cried out between the sobs. The woman thought it interesting that he wasn't scared of being in the same room as the monster woman, or the two more human strangers.

"I have here some adoption papers, if we fill these out, I will become your primary guardian, and the others would be your secondary, and tertiary guardians," Rider explained. "But first Master, introductions. I am Servant Rider, I was summoned during last nights ritual, probably unintentionally, and bound to you."

The youngest kneeled down so her face was level with the boy, and said, "Servant Lancer, at your service."

the monstrous one, instead of kneeling down, lifted him up to eye level, and with a fanged grin said, "Servant Avenger, try not to piss me off too much," then dropped the boy into Rider's arms.

"So, do you want to be part of this group?" Rider asked.

A different sort of tears filled the young boy's eyes, they wanted him! He didn't know why they called him master, but they wanted to adopt him. 

Meanwhile, avenger was looking through the papers, and while she was quickly overwhelmed by the legalese, she did understand that they _weren't_ adoption papers.

"Rider, these aren't adoption papers," she said.

"Sure they are, we just need to sign them," Rider said. She wasn't dismissing Avenger's concerns, but she knew that they couldn't delay, otherwise it would crush the young boy's heart and make him think that they were leading him on.

Avenger shrugged, grabbed the quill, and signed it, as well as filling out the appropriate sections according to the instructions, it wouldn't be a great hardship for her, the hour it took to fill out the paperwork, was.

Lancer was the next one, and then it was Rider's turn.

Then it was Harry's.

Each contract flashed gold when he signed them.

It was then that Avenger dropped the bomb about what they just did, "Well, now we're engaged to the boy, when do you think we should get married?"

A triple, " _ **WHAT**_!?" shook the house, and scared off a lone cat that had approached the house.

Avengers dark chuckles accompanied the other three's attempts to decipher the documents.

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In the Department of Engagements and Adoption, a drunk man was being chewed out for both being drunk and handing out _that_ set of engagement contracts to somebody that was there for adoption papers. His superior had seen the legal copies arrive as they were completed, and the name of whom was the male on all three documents, made him want to rip his subordinate apart, as the man had just had Harry Potter engaged to three unknown women.

The problem was the contracts were ironclad and almost impossible to break. In fact, the only escape clause was put in as a joke, as it required a partner to be caught willfully engaging in a foursome with a unicorn, a dementor, and a dragon, and becoming pregnant by at least one of them.

It had been attempted only three times since the contract was created over a thousand years ago, and each time the person died trying.

He did wonder why the contract accepted the pseudonyms though.

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End chapter.

EN: Notice how many magical numbers the cultists used ^.^

EN2: Minamoto no Raikō, imagine the carnage if she was summoned. Would make an interesting fic though, the massively overprotective and overly maternal Berserker being summoned for Harry.


	2. Chapter 2: Settling accounts

Harry and the Botched Cult Ritual.

AN: just a short one, I've had people asking me who Harry got bound to (I won't say summoned, because technically the cultists summoned em), so here they are in plain text. Lancer = Medusa (young), Rider = Medusa(fate stay night version, aka adult), and Avenger = Gorgon, aka the monstrous version that is similar to the legend. All three can be found in the Fate/Grand Order Wiki if you need pictures.

AN2: a lot of narration at the start, but do we really want to get bogged down in bureaucracy?

IMPORTANT AN: Going by the description in the grand order wiki, which had all her conversations and bond level info, Gorgon has an inhuman mentality and moral code. Which means that I'll have her take actions that the other Medusas' would balk at, or humans would.

Chapter 2: Settling accounts

The next few weeks had Rider out of the house almost constantly, leaving Harry with Lancer, and Avenger.

Rider was working towards getting custody of Harry in the muggle world, working with the insurance company to get the insurance money from the deaths of Vernon and Petunia, since Harry was living with them at the time and he was the only survivor, getting the banks to turn the money from the accounts of the three Dursleys over to Harry, again as the sole survivor of the household, and attempting to find a new place to live, or she would've if Harry hadn't said that he had no problems staying there. This meant they needed to find the deed, and get it turned over to the sole surviving family member.

The fact that the cult was now dead, made the police have very little to do in their investigation, they did a quick sweep through the house, the day after the event, taking fingerprints from everybody, but that was pretty pointless as the cultist outfits included gloves, partial masks, and very sharp knives.

The fact that they had literally dozens of houses to go through, along with the warehouse where the cult performed their bloody task, made them glad to be able to just do a quick look through one so as not to trouble a child or his rescuers.

Harry's Aunt Marge had been visiting when they had been attacked.

Harry's memory of Ripper the dog being killed for attacking a man with a gun gave him warm and fuzzy feelings.

These events were compounded by the visits from the police, social services, reporters, nosy relatives of now dead neighbors, and some weird men in red robes.

The police were surprisingly cooperative with the purple haired woman, she later found out that it was because she had 'risked' her life to save the sole survivor of the ritual. She kept quiet about the fact that her fellow servants and herself were in more danger from the boy then they were from the cult.

After all the boy could command them to do _anything_.

On the home front while Rider was exhausting herself trying to get everything set up, Lancer was astralizing and sneaking into the homes of the dead to search for cash, as until Rider was finished they needed money for food, furniture, and clothes as all three servants had taken one look at the boy's wardrobe, and deemed it unsuitable.

Lancer managed to collect nearly ten thousand in cash from the two or three dozen empty houses left by the cult.

This could have been bad, as that left Harry with... Avenger.

This could've been bad because of her alignment, and the fact that Avenger had a nonhuman outlook, and would have no guilt in killing anything that annoyed her, including her master.

This did not occur to Lancer until she had walked in after her first scavenging mission.

She smelt blood, fresh blood, and rushed into the living room, only to find a bloody white skull mask on the floor, a wand under the coffee table, and a bloody Avenger lying on the couch watching TV being the only indications of a minor struggle.

Harry was lying on her with a wing being used for a blanket much to Lancer's shock and amusement.

The smirk Avenger sent lancer indicated that she knew exactly what the other had been thinking, and with a gentle clawed hand rubbed the sleeping boy's head, indicating that the boy was safe with her.

Lancer discussed the issue with Rider the next day, but neither had a better idea of who to take care of him while they performed their tasks.

Or rather who else they would've trusted enough to do so.

They did wonder who attacked the two though.

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Flashback!

Half an hour before a blonde man was chuckling. His cousin in the ministry, who had just been fired the day before for giving out the wrong forms, had discovered Harry Potter's location from the engagement paperwork.

The boy was living in a muggle home without a single protection, beyond some owl wards, which made him an easy target. There was something in there with him, but that was irrelevant. They would both die, as they couldn't stand against a pureblood like himself.

The fact that the other two that he saw hanging around, the child, and the adult, both with purple hair, were out of the house as well simply made it easier. He would kill them as they came home.

Sneaking into the house he saw the monster woman and boy eyeing each other warily. He pointed the wand at the, to him, marginally more dangerous foe, the half-blood, and started "Avad... ERK" the woman _moved_ , and before he could hit the third syllable of the spell she had his wand arm in one hand, and his throat in another.

She then squeezed the arm that held his hard enough to splinter his bones and make him drop his wand.

Turning toward the young boy she said, "Master, I'll take care of this trash."

She ripped the man's mask off, with her claws spilling some of the man's blood on the mask, and dropped it on the ground. Mindful more of the fact that the mess would be harder to clean up inside, she dragged the man out back by his neck, and since the police were on the other side of the street at that point, she tore him apart with her snakeheads, and had them devour the man to get rid of the body.

Fewer questions that way.

Entering the living room again she saw the boy staring at her wide-eyed. She then noted that she was covered in blood and sighed. So much for... huh?

The boy managed to find the least gore splotched part of her and latched his skinny arms around her waist. She smiled at the boy, she was definitely happier with the engagement now, where she was apathetic before, as seeing her gore splattered figure didn't scare him off than this might actually work.

She, of course, didn't realize that someone obviously trying to attack him, and her saving him, makes a major impression, especially since he didn't really figure it was part of her nature.

The vibe he had from her from the start was actually similar to the saner members of the cult. Cold, heartless, and uncaring of anyone but herself.

The fact that she, without hesitation saved him proved him wrong.

He would later find that he was partially right. Avenger has 'kindness', 'Love', and 'compassion' but they weren't the primary part of her nature. She doesn't really show them most of the time the way others would, she shows it in her own way.

To those, she cares about at least. The others? She would kill if they got in her way without pity or remorse. The problem is that usually, it was hard to get into the category of 'cares about' without getting killed.

The boy managed, with one action, to do just that. Hugging a monster like her, covered in a man's blood, without fear or hesitation... beyond finding the least blood splattered part of her.

With a slight smile, she picked up the boy and laid down on the ruined couch with him, to see what was on the miraculously undamaged TV.

He fell asleep quickly as her wing covered him, as he was still tired from the night before.

It was at this point Lancer came in.

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Flashback end.

Lancer, still not knowing the situation, sighed and simply said, "Could you clean yourself up after you do these things from now on? At least so we don't have bloodstained furniture. Now, what happened?"

Upon hearing the explanation, she simply nodded, and said, "Good job, and good thinking keeping Harry from seeing you tear that person apart."

Unknown to both servants Harry had woken up and heard everything.

He simply didn't care, the man intended to kill him, by the tone of his voice when he spoke, and probably Avenger, he got what he deserved. How he got the stick to start glowing green was strange though.

He simply snuggled further into Avengers feathery embrace.

"Actually I didn't, I Just didn't want to clean up the mess," avenger admitted without shame.

Lancer facepalmed, and wished Rider was there to help.

Dinner that night was Greek and cooked by Rider.

It was mediocre, as while she knew how to use the oven as part of the information granted by the summoning, she had never actually done so, and she refused to allow a ten-year-old to do so.

Avenger was still full from earlier.

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Another month passed, and Harry was in Diagon Alley. He had received a letter inviting him to a magic school, that his servants assured him was genuine.

So he was here to borrow an owl so that he could send his reply.

The past month had been hectic. Medusa finally got the funds released, and the house had been renovated, and furniture replaced. There were only three beds at present, as Harry kept sleeping with Avenger, so they had just bought a huge bed for the master bedroom, in fact the bed took up almost the whole space, as they fully expected to all end up in the same bed as Harry when he was old enough for the contract to force the marriage. (EN)

She drove the two with her new motorcycle, and sidecar, with Harry riding behind her, and Lancer in the sidecar.

The street was still mostly empty, despite the real estate companies giving steep discounts on what was formerly prime real estate. The shadow of the tragedy made most people not want to move there. So far there was only one man who did so, a shaggy man who sunk his entire savings into a home he was currently employed by the companies managing the area to keep the lawns and homes in good condition. He had seen the boy who was part of the only other household, and at first thought, he was the son of his dead friends but shook off the idea as impossible.

It was also discovered that while Avenger hates cooked meals, she was the best cook of the servants. She was also the closest to Harry on a personal level, but that was primarily because not only did she save him, but she spent the most time with him over the last two months.

Both Rider and Lancer accompanied Harry to the alley so that they could spend some time with their young master.

The three of them agreed that after visiting the bank, and seeing whether Harry had an account there, that they would each send a few hours alone with their betrothed.

The trip to the bank was uneventful, as was the wait in line, and the request for an inheritance ritual.

It was then that all hell broke loose.

The ritual was simple, all Harry needed to do was fill an egg cup sized hole in a rune-covered small stone with blood, and the runes would activate, causing the stone to change shape, and end up as a paper-thin stone with all the inheritances listed.

The fact that the goblins found out that he was Harry Potter, had him dragged to the goblin kings in chains, as well as the two females with him. They could easily escape by going into their astral form, but they wanted to know what the problem was, if necessary, they would butcher their way out.

"How dare you enter our bank after the insults you gave us Mr. Potter!" the goblin king roared.

"What insult?" Rider asked cautiously.

"He knows very well what the insult is, we have been sending letters asking for a meeting for the last two months rewarding the changes to his accounts because of his engagements. But he hasn't replied."

Lancer spoke up angrily, "he hasn't had any letters from you, in fact, the first owl he obtained was his school list."

Ragnok the goblin king's anger stalled, and he turned towards the girl that had spoken to him, then the boy, and then snarled "Is that true?" at the boy's frantic nodding the king stalked back to his throne. Sitting down heavily he thought for a second and noted that the girls looked ready to do something. What they could do he didn't know, but he didn't want to take chances.

"You claim that you had no correspondence from us, at all?" the goblin asked, after activating a truthward, which would tell him if they were lying to him, focused on the boy.

"No, I didn't even know you were real until today," Harry replied.

"Release them. My apologies, I thought you were deliberately snubbing us. I will have to talk to your magical guardian about this," the kind ordered.

"I have had nothing to do with the missing letters," Rider replied. "Perhaps whoever was his guardian before me did so."

The goblin ordered chairs to be brought in for his guests, and the boy's file to be brought before him.

What he saw made him see red. The boy's trust vault had been illegally emptied by Albus Dumbledore, and placed into the man's personal account. The man hadn't even been the boy's magical guardian for over eight years. Magical guardians needed to live with their charge, the exception, of course, being the headmaster of a muggleborn's magical school, as the headmaster couldn't live with hundreds of children in different households, or a ward of the state. The exceptions were irrelevant anyway, as Dumbledore had assumed personal guardianship of the boy.

In short, the man had no cause to take the money, especially since the money was earmarked for the boy's care. The false engagement contract that was in the file was even more damning, as a magical guardian, that isn't the head of a family, can't make such contracts.

"I see, I will replace the keys to both your family Vault and your trust vault. The cost of which, along with the inheritance ritual shall come out of the vault belonging to someone who stole money from you, _after_ the money, interest, and fees have been taken out," the goblin king said with a smirk. "And as an apology for your treatment today, we will have our best senior account manager replace the one that allowed the thefts to occur. Now I assume that you need to withdraw funds, let's see." the goblin king thought for a second than smirked, one of his guards had been getting annoying lately. "Goreaxe, take these three to see their new key getting forged, then Mr. Potter's vaults."

The named goblin looked like he was going to object, but at his king's glare, he decided not to. Perhaps putting laxatives in his king's grog, for the fifth time that week, had been a bad idea.

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After the group left he called in both the current, and future account managers. He knew the new manager would be raking in the money from all of the unlicensed and unauthorized Harry Potter merchandise.

The next few years would be very profitable for both the boy and the nation.

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They arrived at the forges just in time to see the new key being cooled and was soon back on the surface with a bag full of coins.

Then Harry took off with Lancer while Rider started the school shopping.

The robe shop was empty of customers at the time he arrived, so he was able to get measured in under half an hour.

The two drifted in and out f stored, and were absolutely disgusted at the Harry Potter merchandise, and especially the 'completely lifelike' Harry Potter sex dolls... supposedly of him at every age until his current one.

They ended up at an ice-cream shop for the end of their tie, while they waited for Rider. The servant arrived with the trunk and the vast majority of the items he needed, just in time to take over.

They did much the same, they picked up his robes, and then stopped at the wand shop.

Rider nearly gutted the man for sneaking up on them.

"Mr. Potter, and someone whom I don't know, you have come for your wand correct? Let's see."

The next two hours were taken up by Harry trying every single wand in the store, a process that left the shop in a complete mess, barely standing, and the wandmaker a female teen-aged cross between human and platypus.

She was very annoyed at that, and decided to destroy the holly and phoenix feather wand that changed him, now her.

"It looks like none of my wands match you. Which means I will need to custom craft you a wand, most unusual. You seem to react best to oak, and a full foot long, but the core escapes me." Ollivander said.

"I have an idea, my family had found some hairs and scales that might work for him," Rider replied.

"Let me see," the platypus girl replied then cast a few spells at the materials, and Harry. "Hmm, yes, these will work, in fact, they seem to have been donated for him, willingly, I hope you don't mind if I keep the remainder? I'll knock fifty percent of the price of my custom job for it."

"Agreed," Rider replied,

"Fifty Galleons is the normal price, so it will be twenty-five, and it'll take a week, is this okay?"

"Yes," an annoyed Harry said as he was sick and tired of being in the shop.

Rider promised a better time the next time they went out, as they collected Lancer, and headed home.

None of them remembered to send a letter, the contents of which would change after Rider read a book that night.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.

The next day, two letters arrived at the Potter, formerly Dursley, household.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.

End Chapter.

EN: 17 in magic world, or until declared adult, whichever comes first.


	3. Chapter 3: Meetings and reporters

Harry and The Botched Cult Ritual.

AN: I will not have anything beyond cuddles until at least 4th year, and even then there will be a GOOD reason for it.

AN2: just a minor thing, I will be using class titles for servants instead of real names, since all three are technically Medusa, a possible exception being when it's just Harry and one of them.

Chapter 3: Meetings and reporters.

After finding two identical Hogwarts letters on the doorstep, the quartet rewrote Harry's acceptance letter and sent it off. His wand wouldn't be ready for another six days, so they did a quick in and out of the owl post office. 

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.

That night, the Deputy Headmistress opened a letter.

 _To Deputy Headmistress McGonagall._

 _I have received all three of the Hogwarts letters you have sent, one yesterday and two today, please don't send any more._

_I would like to arrange a meeting with you or a professor you trust to answer some questions, and requests that are in line with the school rules. This will have nothing to do with our acceptance of the invitation to your school, it's more that we want to iron out the issue before we arrive and drop it on your lap unexpectedly._

_We have already obtained my supplies for the year, barring the wand which will be finished in about a week._

 _We await your reply._

_Sincerely_

 _Harry James Potter._

McGonagall pursed her lips in thought. She was surprised the Dursleys would help Harry with his shopping, but if they did that would mean that there would be one less child to lead through the alley, something that she was grateful for. 

She wrote her response. Since she was going to meet with some muggleborns in a few days anyway, she would visit the boy before leading them to the alley.

She did wonder why he was getting so many letters, there should've only been one sent, and if there wasn't a reply in a week, a professor would be sent.

She did know that no more letters would be sent since he sent his letter.

She was wrong.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.

An old man in his office was having a blast creating letters to send. His plan was to harass the Dursleys, then send Hagrid.

He did wonder why all of the monitoring devices were destroyed, but since he had a volatile potion near them, he simply assumed that Fawkes set it off, destroying them completely.

Oh well, tomorrow Harry will get three more letters.

He would have Harry come to his office, where Dumbledore would liberate enough blood to remake the trackers, and then heal and obliviate the boy.

It's for the greater good.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.

The next three days were annoying for the quartet in number four Privet drive, as a nearly forty letters had arrived. Three through the mail slot, then a dozen more, then twenty-four more in two dozen eggs the very nervous milkman gave them.

Then Professor McGonagall arrived on the fourth day as her reply had promised.

She was shocked when a purple haired girl of an age to attend Hogwarts answered the door looking very annoyed.

"Who are you?" she asked bluntly. The girl was waiting for the day's letter delivery annoyance to happen. They were saving the letters for when the professor arrived, so as to demand an explanation.

"I am Professor McGonagall young lady, and I think I might have the wrong house," the confused professor said.

"Oh, sorry, come in," the still irritated girl said.

As she walked in, the professor noted that there weren't any pictures of the Dursleys, anywhere.

Instead, there seemed to be pictures of Harry with three... females. Only a few, since unknown to her, they hadn't done that much to commemorate taking pictures yet. 

One of the pictured women frightened her, she was obviously not human, on the level of centaurs or goblins. 

She, even in picture form, frightened the professor.

This would be worse when said professor walked into the living room, to find the other two females in the pictures waiting for her, along with Harry.

All three were waiting and glaring at her when she walked in. she also made an assumption that the three females were sisters.

Lancer walked to the sofa that Harry was sitting on and sat down next to him, leaning slightly into him.

All three of them were trying to get him used to positive physical contact.

On the coffee table was a respectable pile, that due to the green ink she could tell were Hogwarts letters. A lot of them.

"Explain," Harry said blandly... too blandly.

The professor was at a loss for words. This wasn't impatience, this was harassment.

"I can't. This is _not_ the normal procedure. I or another professor should've been sent one week after the first letter unless we received a reply. The only thing I can think of is that the headmaster made more and sent them personally. I apologize and will talk to him personally. Now you had questions?" Minerva replied soothingly, and inside she was seething at the headmaster. Then a thought struck her, "Oh, and I have one question, where are the Dursleys? I would've thought they would have objected to you taking over their house like this." 

"Dead," Avenger answered for Harry, causing the professor to stiffen at the blunt and unemphatic response, and even more so at how Harry didn't even twitch at it. Avenger continued, uncaring at how her words affected the professor, "some cultists kidnapped them, and Harry, as well as most of those living on the street, and killing the rest. They sacrificed them in some sort of fake ritual, and we only arrived in time to save Harry. We then decided to protect him, and obtained guardianship of him."

Minerva saw the side glance Harry gave Avenger and thought they were lying to her. 

She was wrong, every word was the truth, but was missing quite a few details. 

"And the issue we want to bring up is this," Rider started, and pulled out the book of Hogwarts rules and regulations. Opening it to the correct page, in which she had circled the rule she wanted to point out, she slid the book to the professor. "According to the circled rule, a student can, if he or she chooses, bring his/her fiancee/fiance to the school with them if they're not a student, and have a private room to share." 

McGonagall read the indicated rule before responding, "Yes I can see that, and I'm assuming your younger sister is engaged to him?" the professor had a headache starting.

Rider looked sheepish as she replied, "well, actually we all are."

"What," Minerva replied flatly.

"The man in charge of the department that I got the paperwork from, was drunk, and instead of giving me the paperwork for becoming his magical guardian, he gave us engagement contracts, and instructions to fill them out properly, and an odd quill. We filled them out with only one of us realizing that we had the wrong papers, but we were in a hurry," Rider clarified as she glanced at Avenger to indicate who actually figured it out.

McGonagall massaged her temples as she contemplated the situation. In truth, there was nothing she could do to stop the three from coming with Harry, the best she could hope for is to demand they obey the rules of the school, which she did.

Avenger replied for them, and said, "Fine, but we will defend Harry, with what we believe is the appropriate response."

McGonagall was about to reply, when letters started shooting down from the chimney, causing all five of those in the room to abandon the room. After it passed the door was opened and the room was littered with nearly forty letters.

Harry turned to the professor and angrily said, "Stop this."

The professor was in too much of a shock to do more than nod.

On her way out she would check their claims of being engaged, before setting up a 'Lord's Quarters' otherwise known as the Marriage or Engagement rooms. It was dubbed the Lord's Quarters because it was almost always the nobility being contracted to be engaged during the school years.

She would be a half hour late to meet her appointment for the first muggleborn on her list due to her detour.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.

Twenty Minutes after the professor left the Department of Engagements and Adoption, a reporter came in. it was looking to be a really slow month, so she was searching through the various departments to see if there was some sort of vaguely interesting story to pad out the paper if she needed to do so.

She would be shocked to find a front page, if she both worded it right and made the article at the right time, instead of a story to pad page seven. 

The new hire, who had replaced the drunkard scowled at the reporter, as he didn't like how an article of hers damaged his chances in the ministry to the point that the drunkard that he replaced got the job instead of him. 

"Can I help you?" he ground out.

"Yes, can you check if there are any interesting in the engagements?" Rita asked politely.

Noting the stubborn scowl on the man's face, she dropped a hand full of coins on his desk for him. She didn't need to pay for anything from the department, nor was it illegal to give her anything, but she recognized that the man needed some goodwill. 

The man raised an eyebrow, and with a sigh, he took the coins. He was short on cash for the week, and it wasn't like she was asking for something illegal. 

"How far back do you want me to check?" he asked as he stood up to go to the filing cabinets.

"Four or five months," she replied.

He was lucky, there were only six contracts. Three were so boring that he didn't bother giving them to her, and then he found... them. 

Three valid contracts for one Harry Potter.

He found two notations on the contracts, the first of which had him dig deeper, into a file over nine years old.

The second of which indicated that they had been given, and filled out the wrong forms.

And he found a contract stamped in big unfriendly letters, 'invalid' and the stamp was dated the same day as they were submitted.

Creating copies of the four contracts he refiled them (correctly), and brought them to the waiting reporter.

He owed Dumbledore some payback for hiring a man that made him unable to become a healer due to his bias.

"I found a few interesting things, they are yours on one condition," the man asked with a smirk.

"I already paid you," the reporter said with narrowed eyes.

"No, not that, just that you tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth about the contracts, at least about the _subjects_ of the contracts."

The woman smirked. That was an easy condition to fulfill for a filler piece, besides there were apparently other people involved. "Agreed."

With a smirk of his own, the man held up the contracts so that she could see the name of the male on the contract. 

The sound of clinking coins sounded in her head as she saw the name, and she recognized what type of engagement contract it was.

The sound became louder in her mind after she snatched the papers from him.

Three. Three valid contracts, all for the-boy-who-lived. All three signed by accident, and to top it off, a false contract for the boy-who-lived, and Ginevra Weasley, signed by Albus Dumbledore and Molly Weasley. 

Dropping another handful of coins on the desk, she dashed out of the office. She had a month to write her front page article. She wanted it to be delivered on the first day of classes.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.

Dumbledore had a shiver go down his spine as he was preparing over a hundred letters to be sent to where the Dursleys would run off to.

He was interrupted when his deputy barged into his office with a pissed look on her face.

"Dumbledore, you stop harassing that boy with those letters right now!" she roared.

"Oh dear," he muttered, then what she said clicked, "Wait! What?"

His question went unanswered as the woman tore him a new one for his actions.

He decided as he tuned out his ranting deputy, to send Hagrid earlier than he had planned. He definitely didn't deserve this though. 

Too bad that he didn't listen to his deputy's rant. Most of the questions would've been answered.

Instead, he sent Hagrid to the island he had spelled the Dursleys to go to when they first took in Harry. The boy would be there before midnight tonight. 

He was wrong.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.

End chapter.


	4. Chapter 4: On the way to Hogwarts

Harry and The Botched Cult Ritual.

Author request: even if I go in a way you don't like, please be CIVIL about complaining about it. No cussing me out about it, please. Someone did so in the latest two chapters of Dark Love because they didn't like the Oni I added. There is no need for that much cursing. 

Question: this is either a fic request, or a "point me towards this fic" situation. Has anybody ever seen a Dragon Riders of Pern fic that has Mellony returning to Half Circle Seahold after she became a Harper? (More reactions of family, or her reactions to them after becoming what they said she would never be.) 

AN: Some people think I made Dumbledore look evil with the letters of harassment, but I would like to point out that the numbers of letters, increasing each day, is CANNON! and the compulsion to go to the deserted island? Why would people who think themselves normal, even THINK of going there? Also how in the hell did they get OFF the island as Hagrid stole the boat?

Chapter 4: On the way to Hogwarts.

It was time, time for Harry to hop on a train to a magical school. Two of his servants were visible and material, while the one that would send everybody in Kings Cross Station screaming and possibly break the statute of secrecy, was astralized. Well, she was until they entered platform nine and three quarters, ignoring the woman who was talking about muggles, and said platform. 

Harry barely convinced avenger that it would be better to wait until they were on the train to materialize, to avoid panic if nothing else.

He did wonder why that woman with the tacky glasses was so eager to get a picture of the four of them together, but he had humored her.

It was too bad he didn't get the Daily Prophet.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.

In Hogwarts, an old man was recovering from a massive spit-take after reading the headlines of the paper. 

Headlines which showed that many plans of his to keep Harry Potter in the light have crashed and burned.

To be fair the only member of the staff not choking on her breakfast was McGonagall, who already knew most of the situation, though she was pissed about some of what was in the article.

 _BOY-WHO-LIVED THRICE ENGAGED!_

 _By Rita Skeeter._

 _That's right folks, our child hero is engaged! I have read the documents themselves, and they are perfectly legal if accidentally signed._

_Yes, accidentally. Apparently, Lucius Malfoy, who had been missing for months, had pulled some strings to put one of his cousins in the department, and the man was drunk enough to give out one of the most confusing, and binding, engagement contracts to one of the engaged woman, instead of adoption papers._

_This incident was the last straw that had that person fired for incompetence._

 _The picture above contains Harry and his three fiancee's, which also double as his primary, secondary, and tertiary magical guardians, and was taken by me personally at an undisclosed location, as well as a geas preventing me from ever revealing the location._

_This will probably be a massive disappointment to those families that desire to have a daughter marry the famous boy-who-lived but would have to get the agreement off all three of the females,_ and _Harry to do so._

 _My research has also found a fake marriage contract, one made nearly a month_ after _Harry's parents died._

_By someone who couldn't hold onto the magical guardianship of the boy for two weeks before being removed from the position, whom since a magical guardian doesn't have the authority to make such an engagement would have made the contract null even if he had maintained the position._

 _The man had lost the position, both because of the conflict of interest that developed because he used one of his own positions to confirm his guardianship and that he neglected to find out that a magical guardian needs to live with his, or her, charge except in some specific cases. None of them apply here._

_The name of the man who did these deceptions?_

 _Albus Dumbledore. That's right, our Supreme Mugwump, Chief Warlock, and Headmaster, whom apparently has an unhealthy interest in our underaged boy hero._

 _And who was the other signer? The one representing the prospective bride?_

 _Molly Weasley, the wife of the head of the Weasley family._

 _A woman that had no authority at all to make such an agreement in her family's name._

_For the details of all four contracts, real and fake, page 2._

 _For all of the discovered Dumbledore's attempts to control Harry Potter, Page 3._

Dumbledore stood up, he needed to get the paper to print a retraction. He knew he was Harry's magical guardian, he had to be!

Taking another look at the slightly soggy picture he shuddered, one of them is most certainly dark, the other two are probably dark as well, not to mention that the damn woman just pointed everybody that would mean the boy harm directly at the easiest method to find the boy's location.

He was about to leave when his deputy headmistress said something that stopped him cold.

"Exactly why are you surprised at this? I told you about this after I met the boy last month. The four of them will be sharing a 'Lord's Quarters' as in their right by their engagement. And before you say anything, Severus, I checked their story, and it's true." 

Dumbledore sat heavily and wondered how he was going to convince Harry to add Ginny Weasley. The boy _needed_ to marry a pureblood to appease that faction. 

He finished his meal, which tasted like ash to him now, all the while plotting on how to get some control back.

Hagrid had failed miserably. The Dursleys weren't on the island, and the man said the Dursleys weren't home, only a woman that... taking a look at the picture again, he face-palmed. A woman that looked a lot like one of those Harry is engaged to.

So Harry had gotten his supplies without Hagrid, _great_ , he thought with sarcasm.

Now Harry didn't know of the package Hagrid had removed, and Ollivander had sent a letter saying he had destroyed the holly and Phoenix wand that had been commissioned the day after Halloween, claiming that it was evil.

He just hoped young Ronald wouldn't screw up befriending Harry, because if he did, getting the boy to marry the youngest Weasley would be that much harder.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.

While the reactions to the article were sounding in Hogwarts, Harry was placing his multi-compartment trunk in the storage area of his, and his fiancees' compartment. 

He looked at the three that he was bound to marry before making a choice, one that he had to make.

He sat down next to Lancer and snuggled up to her, and dropped off to sleep.

He had been tired, for all that the four of them had packed the night before to make things less hectic in the morning.

Harry couldn't sleep due to his nerves.

Not excitement, no. he was nervous about meeting people his own age, and lancer really didn't count. He never had a friend that was his own age, most children had been chased off by his cousin, and others had joined in on mocking him to prevent the gang from targeting themselves.

Hence why he was nervous at entering a school full of new strangers. At least he wasn't alone. He had the three people that were the first people that were nice to him.

The door slammed open revealing a redheaded boy, who looked at Harry who was blinking at the loud noise. 

The redheaded boy blinked at the females in the room, then cringed at Avenger.

Shaking himself to get his mind back on track the boy asked, "Can I sit here? Everywhere else is full."

Harry looked at the compartment they were in and frowned. The compartment was full. The other boy could _possibly_ squeeze in, but it would make things rather cramped.

"No, as you can see we're full," Harry answered.

"Those three need to leave then, I need a place to sit," the boy said smugly.

Harry took stock of who was where, and who wouldn't kill the other boy. He was in luck, Rider was on the aisle side seat, and so he asked, "Rider, could you please get rid of him... non-lethally?" 

He asked that she didn't kill the other boy so as not to get into trouble.

Rider smiled, the boy had annoyed her as well by basically demanding that she and her fellow servants leave, so she stood up, and the boy smirked at the fact that she was obeying him while ignoring what Harry said, and then she grabbed him. 

Dragging the boy off she found an empty compartment... right next to the one she shared with Harry.

"No empty compartments huh? She hissed as she dragged him up to look at his eyes through his special glasses. Her violet eyes with their unusual pupils stared directly into his. "Leave us alone."

She then opened the door and lightly tossed him in, then she brought in his trunk in and tossed it on a seat.

Ronald Weasley grumbled in his compartment about how Harry should've just let him sit with him.

He was definitely going to complain to the headmaster about Harry bringing strange women with him to the school. 

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.

Twenty minutes after Rider returned, another boy, this time flanked by two bigger boys opened the door.

Harry was upset that his nap/cuddle with lancer was interrupted... again.

"What do _you_ want?" he asked irritated.

The boy was thrown off his carefully prepared speech, that had gone through five revisions, and ten complete rewrites, before responding, realizing that the other boy seems to be having a bad day, "My name is Malfoy, Draco Malfoy, and I heard Harry Potter was in this compartment, from a boy mumbling to himself in the next compartment. You will find some families are better than others, and I can help you." he then paused and looked at the three servants in the compartment before continuing, "Why don't you come to my compartment to get away from the freaks and subhuman trash?"

Harry glared at the other boy coldly before responding, "Get lost asswipe, I don't need someone like you insulting my fiancees."

Draco opened his mouth, to respond, and then closed it, realizing that he had screwed up. He thought that the three were people who Harry just met, perhaps new professors, he was wrong, but why else would adults, especially subhuman trash like the winged and scaled one, be allowed on the train.

Just wait until his father hears of this... as soon as the man returns that is.

He left the compartment, swearing that he would get Potter back for the insult. Perhaps Tom would be able to help him. Heading back to the compartment he had claimed before searching out Harry, he thought about how to compose the problem to that strange journal he found in his father's study. It was obvious, to him, a two-way diary to allow his father to get advice from a trusted adviser, and his father wouldn't mind him borrowing it for a while. 

It was odd that he was able to enter his father's study though, normally it was warded so only his father could enter.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.

"Master, would you mind if I get rid of him... permanently?" Avenger asked, scowling at the now closed door. 

Just then the door opened again, and two new students looked in, a bushy haired girl, and a plump boy, they took one look at the atmosphere in the room, and the monster woman scowling in their direction and went, in their own way, "Meep..." and departed post haste.

Harry sighed, and wished he could give permission, but instead said, "Wait until we have some sort of excuse and/or plausible deniability. We _don't_ want legal troubles."

Avenger grunted her displeasure, before digging out a thick book on the history of torture methods, deluxe edition, fourth generation.

Harry figuring he wouldn't get any sleep, if the number of interruptions in the first hour was any indication, pulled out a manga series to pass the hours, as he had already browsed through his school books.

The other two followed suit, as there wasn't really a lot to do on the very long train ride. Rider had The Hobbit and Lancer had the first of the very punny Xanth series.

Halfway to the school, the two that had run away scared came back, and this time, the girl managed to get her courage up, helped by the fact that the irritation level in the room had dropped significantly, to ask, "Have any of you seen a toad?" 

"No."

"Nope."

"Get lost."

"No."

The girl sighed at the list of answers, and the blatant dismissal by the very non-human woman decided to cut her losses and leave. 

Harry soon heard the announcement that the train would be arriving in ten minutes so he changed into the school uniform, uncaring about the three in the room with him, as he trusted them, and that they would see it eventually anyway.

Harry frowned at that thought as he realized that, even if you count the people he knew before the kidnapping and murders, he only could ever remember trusting three people in his entire life.

Three people in all his memories.

Shaking his head to clear the depressing thoughts Harry departed the train after it stopped.

Harry was directed towards the boats, along with his fiancees, as the trip served two purposes.

The first was the awe factor when the castle came into view.

The second is to give the older students time to get to the school and sorted out before the new students get sorted.

Rider and Harry shared a boat, as did Avenger and Lancer, so as to distribute the weight of the adults better. 

The students around Harry's boat looked at him in fear, since he and rider were speaking in Parseltongue the whole trip, something the three of them blessed his line with, as while it cannot be learned normally, it can be learned by being granted the ability by certain beings or being descended from one. 

A high powered Lamia or Naga for example... or one of the Gorgon sisters.

Even as servants the trio still had the ability to grant the language.

This had the effect of granting Harry the language for his own bloodline, instead of borrowing it from a soul fragment, and allowing him to use it at will instead of sporadically, as well as knowing when he used it.

As the castle came into view Harry hissed out, " _Impressive, but does it need to be so big? There aren't that many students."_

Rider chuckled and replied in the same language, _"Not now at least. The last dark lord killed many in the past the place was probably far fuller."_

Harry simply nodded thoughtfully.

Lancer decided to pitch in, _"do you think there will be a place we can practice? You have expressed an interest in learning to use weapons."_

" _Considering the size of the place, they better,"_ Avenger said. She really couldn't help Harry with weapons, but she could protect him, and him learning to fight would allow him to either protect himself or survive until one of them could get there. 

After hitting the landing, and finding a poltergeist throwing pebbles at them, Harry indicated to avenger that she should crouch down, and then he spoke in Parseltongue in her ear, _"Anything you can do about him if he starts becoming too annoying? Discreetly I mean, since he's already dead, you shouldn't get in too much trouble, but I would rather you not be found out."_

Avenger gave a wicked smirk and nodded. Turning the smirk on the annoying specter, said specter decided that he had somewhere else to go.

McGonagall, who had come out while the poltergeist was throwing the stones looked at the winged woman speculatively, and decided to ignore her presence, as another person who could get Peeves to behave in any manner would be welcome.

Too bad she didn't know that Avenger was going to stop him... permanently as soon as she had both a good excuse and an opportunity.

Shaking her head, the professor lead the students to the great hall, the encounter with Peeves putting them behind schedule, plus the fact that she didn't think having them encounter ghosts again so soon after being attacked by a ghost-like being would be a good idea. 

Harry tuned out the hat, and the sorting until he heard, "Potter, Harry."

Walking to the hat he allowed it to be placed on his head.

Minutes passed, while the hat mumbled out loud, "Let's see, hmm, no not there, well maybe. Why not? I see. Any requests? Oh? Well, you might fit there, but it's really not a good fit. You don't think you'd fit in that house? Why? Oh, you don't think you'd be _happy_ there, and I see way too many expectations." 

"Just say Gryffindor and be done with it you damn hat," a greasy haired man snarled at the thirty-minute mark. 

"Don't rush me! This one's complicated," the hat snarled back. "now where was I? Oh yes, I see. Well, that kind of cinches it." 

The hat, having made up it's 'mind' opened up its brim and said... 

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.

End chapter: because I'm not sure on what house to put him in, with the exception of him NOT being a Gryffindor, suggestions, along with reasons welcome. Of course if people want his to be a house of his own, or just living out of guest quarters, that could also work.


	5. Chapter 5: First day

Harry and the Botched Cult Ritual.

AN: most people seem to think Hufflepuff, and I think I'll take that into account. Mainly because one reviewer pointed out that it would dull backlash from snake speech.

The reason why I asked in the first place is I don't see him being happy in ANY house. the cloying friendliness of the puffs, the expectations of the gryffs, the nosiness of the claws, and the snakes would have casualties, warning though, I'm going for a more Fate's Gamble type Puffy Harry, rather than the stereotypical puff. The numbers were as follows. If someone gave 2 suggestions I counted both. 

Ravens: 17

Badgers: 23

Snakes: 8

Lions: Not considered, but got 1 anyway.

AN2: a guest said that the servants would be grateful if Harry did get a philosopher stone, but I would like to point out whether he gets it or not, they die when he does, as is the nature of servants, so they wouldn't outlive him by more than a few hours.

AN3: I'm giving Gorgon the ability to hide, or shorten her very very long tail.

AN4: I have a question if there are seven years, but only five school days and each year gets one night for astronomy, when do the last two years take theirs? 

AN5: No, no more servants, psudoservants, girls for Harry, or mythological people.

Chapter 5: First day.

"Hufflepuff Lord's Quarters!" the hat shouted sounding slightly unhappy with its own decision, then sent into Harry's mind before being taken off, "S _orry for this, you won't be happy in any of the houses, but there's less chance of a bloodbath with the badgers. At least you and your rather unusual fiancees will have a suite to yourselves which will help prevent crowding, also loyalty to those three, and the hard work you are planning for yourself outstrips your other qualities."_

Harry frowned at the ending comment, and went to sit will his new housemates, thinking on the hat's lasts words. He ended up effectively walled off from his housemates by the females in his life. One on each side of him, and the last across from him, which cut down the crowding immensely.

It also made it easy to ignore those rude enough to talk across the women or girl.

At the head table, there were three frowning professors, and one gleeful one, and they were all frowning, or smiling for the same reason. The hat took over thirty minutes to put Harry in Hufflepuff, which was a long time for a sorting and didn't even sound happy about it. 

Snape was grumbling to himself at the arrogance of the boy to hold everyone up only to be placed in a 'leftover' house.

Dumbledore was frowning because many of his plans required the youngest Weasleys to be near the boy, and all of that family, for the past three hundred years have been in the house of the lions. Shaking his head he hoped he could influence the youngest Weasley to join him in that house instead.

McGonagall was disappointed that the son of two of her favorite students wasn't in her house, but on the other hand, she felt the Badgers would be good for Harry, and have the obviously socially stunted boy find more friends. 

Professor Sprout was smiling like a madwoman, her house simply did not _get_ such prominent people, so it felt good to her that her house finally got the recognition it deserved.

Too bad she didn't know of the mess her house just acquired.

Harry's eyes started twitching as he heard that there was a corridor that had a horrible death in it, so he simply vowed not to approach it, as he didn't feel like putting his life at risk.

Avenger, on the other hand, was privately deciding to see what the issue was, and if necessary, remove the threat... permanently. 

Lancer and Rider were just wanting him to stay away from the danger.

The group was so caught up in the issue they missed the warning that the school song was going to happen.

The foursome covered their ears as the discordant melody of a song assaulted their ears, which garnered some looks that were both nasty, and understanding.

Nasty because they weren't showing loyalty to the school because they weren't singing.

Understanding because three hundred or so students singing to different melodies is just a lot of noise.

When it was over the prefects led them to their dorm entrance in the basement. 

The female Prefect, a young woman with bubblegum pink hair stood in front of a blank wall with a pair of barrels bracketing a space large enough for a set of double doors. She then cleared her throat.

"This is the entrance to the dorms, listen to this knock on the left barrel," she said, and then proceeded to rap out the rhythm of, "Shave and a haircut, two bits," with her wand. After she finished a pair of ornate doors appeared, the doors had a stylized badger across both of them. The doors promptly opened showing a very comfortable sitting room, the black and yellow coloring was tastefully arranged so as not to offend the senses. 

Inside Professor Sprout was waiting for her new students. She always asks the prefects to take a bit longer path so she could arrive before the students. 

"Welcome to Hufflepuff new students, and to the returning students, Welcome back! Returning students can head to your dorm-rooms, except for the prefects of course. New students, I need you to wait until I explain the rules of the house. Since we are in the basement and have more space to spread out we offer double rooms for the students, and if circumstances or numbers permit, singles. The male dorms are on the left, and the female ones are on the right, no males in the female dorms and vice versa. There is a student here with an active engagement contract so he and his fiancees will be living in a Lord's Suite, or as they are also called a Marriage Suite, please respect the quartet's privacy and not try and barge in.

Next, I expect you down here by eight so that I can personally lead you to breakfast, and hand out your schedules. 

Lastly, we are known for our hard work, loyalty, and friendliness, so I expect that you all will be at least courteous to one another, as well as the other students and staff. I'm not expecting you to be friends with everybody, but I do expect you not to _start_ any trouble.

Now off to bed you lot," the Hufflepuff head of house said, and then paused, before adding, "Note I said don't _start_ any trouble, but I expect you to close ranks and _finish_ any trouble _anyone_ starts _._ "

Sprout smirked, she gave the same speech every year, except for the marriage quarters part. She then frowned as she recalled that not a single student seemed to catch on to her meaning. After all, the Hogwarts potion's professor has been causing trouble for her students for over a decade, since he was hired in fact. It's just that her pupils seem to think you couldn't be friendly and courageous at the same time, at least while in the school.

She had high hopes for this year that a student would stand up to him, and she had her suspicions on the one to do so.

She could hope.

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The engaged quartet looked around the set of rooms they were given, four bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a living room. The largest bedroom and the bed had been enlarged to fit all four of them comfortably without overcrowding. It was a good thing that Avenger could hide her very long tail, as the bed would've been far overcrowded with that out. Her wings, on the other hand, made a nice extra blanket for the group. 

Three rooms were promptly ignored as Harry was tired from the late night before, the journey, meeting so many new people, and the rest of the events of the day.

The group decided to turn in, and it was a cuddly group that fell asleep in the comfortable bed.

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An aged man was glaring at an enchanted piece of fabric, before asking, "Why? The boy _needed_ to go into Gryffindor. So why did you put him in Hufflepuff?"

The hat sighed as it answered, "Truthfully, and without going into details, Hufflepuff was the _least_ _wors_ e option. He would be _miserable_ as a Gryffindor. Everybody would have _expectations_ for him. Expectations that they would be disappointed that he wouldn't live up to, both socially, politically, and by attitude. The Slytherins would be severely depopulated within a week, as would Ravenclaw. The former by insulting and/or attacking Harry, and his betrothed, and the latter for piling on questions before they snapped. The worst that Hufflepuff would do is crowd him, and he has a place to retreat to if that happens."

"Are you saying that he or the women with him would kill?" Dumbledore asked the hat.

"If he was threatened, yes."

The old man was now even more convinced that the women surrounding the boy, the boy who probably needed to die to fully vanquish Voldemort, and if he miraculously managed to survive, he would need to be the beacon of light for the wizarding world, needed to be separated from the boy.

He can't be tainted by associating with people that are so obviously dark, plus the pressing need for him to marry a pureblood to appease the traditionalists.

The problem is that he had no official hold on the boy, and he would need to do some fast talking to not get punished for the Weasley contract. 

At least he could be one hundred percent truthful that he had no idea he was doing anything wrong, he had no children, and was rusty on those type of laws, and was relying on the pureblood that he was arranging it with to help him remember.

It didn't help that the last time those types of laws were broken was before he defeated Grindelwald, and hence before he assumed any of his many positions. 

He realized he also needed to find a way to keep Mrs. Weasley out of prison for line theft, a very serious crime considering how purebloods think of lineage. 

His week was going to be very busy, and that wasn't even counting that it was the first week of school.

With a heavy heart, he started to prepare his defense, knowing that he had to juggle two different defenses at the same time and to create a case to become Harry's magical guardian again. 

The last looked like it would be the second hardest case, with the hardest to keep Mrs. Weasley out of prison, as she was a pureblood, younger, and had learned the laws on her mothers or fathers knee.

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The next day dawned in a chilly manner, and the three servants were freezing. They had, while in their first life, lived in a much warmer climate, and the issue was compounded by their reptilian natures... and their choice in clothing. It was fortunate that they were immune to things like frostbite by them being servants, but it was still uncomfortable for them.

They would have preferred to spend the day in the warmth for their bed with their warm bedmate, but they knew that wasn't possible, so they followed him to the common room so that they could be led to breakfast.

Professor Sprout nodded as she saw that her students, plus guests, were all present when she came down at eight and led them through the quickest, and most stable route to the great hall. 

Harry looked at his schedule after he received it while sipping at the plain water he washed his meal down with, as he couldn't stand the pumpkin juice, and shrugged. 

It looked really light to him, barely three hours of schooling a day, when he was used to six hours, and one of them, which was on Tuesday, was at night. (EN)

Today was potions, which according to the grumbles he was hearing was usually paired Hufflepuff-Ravenclaw, but for the first years, it was suddenly Hufflepuff-Gryffindor, charms, and history. 

With a frown, he headed towards his first class... potions. 

It was decided that Lancer would be the one to accompany him to classes on most days, as she was the one that fit in the most, while the other two would find useful ways to occupy their time... or at least stay out of trouble.

While Harry and Lancer headed out, Medusa decided to check out the library.

Avenger went straight for the third-floor corridor. 

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Harry sat down in a seat with Lancer and took out his potions book, cauldron, and a notebook. And set them up, as well as the box containing the basic first-year ingredients. He had already read the prologue and the first chapter, which for the first class of any subject, should be more than sufficient. 

He was wrong.

First was a barrage of questions, that weren't covered, or even _mentioned_ in the reading, except as in an off-hand manner, and the insults. 

After the second question he opened the mental link all masters have with their servants and 'said', " _You know, I'm currently evaluating the pros and cons of walking out and not returning."_

He heard avenger 'grunt' mentally before she answered he comments, _"and what's do you think?"_

" _I'm trying to figure out the pros, since the man just, after asking advanced questions, and insulting me, and taking off twenty-five of those 'points' for not knowing the answers, put a recipe on the board and told to brew it. No theory, discussion, or safety instructions, and that's not counting the mocking he started out with, and there goes another five points, that's it, I'm out,"_ Harry sent back.

" _Are you sure Harry? At the very least he would be able to stop anything dangerous from happening if you make a mistake,"_ Rider asked, while she was reading a potions book.

" _I agree with Harry, as the professor did_ nothing _to help a boy's cauldron from exploding,"_ Lander said throwing her two knuts worth in.

"Are you listening to me Potter?" said professor snarled at the boy who had pretty much been ignoring the man. 

Harry stood up without a word, packed up, and left with Lancer at his side, ignoring the shouts of detention and another fifty points from Hufflepuff.

He simply didn't think the points were worth being insulted, and he had no plans to attend the detentions.

His fellow badgers were shocked that the boy had left, and didn't seem to care about the points. There was also some grumbling about him betraying his house, small ones because they could see how the professor had been unfairly tearing into him.

Since he had a free period before charms, he set up his cauldron in an empty classroom, and after finding some water, brewed the potion that the man had assigned on his own.

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Meanwhile, by the time Harry had telepathically called his servants, avenger had already broken down the door, defeated the Cerberus, and tore plant in the trapdoor apart. She didn't know or care about the name of the plant, only that it was vicious. 

The next room had her seeing a bunch of keys with wings, and a locked door.

Harry had contacted her just as she prepared to kick the door, and she had to complete the motion before answering him.

The door was reinforced quite well and held up to the blow. In fact, Avengers clawed feet didn't even scratch it. 

The frame and the hinges, on the other hand, were not, and the hinges tore themselves apart, and the wooden frame shattered sending the intact door and lock flying into the next room. 

"Pathetic," the monstrous woman muttered as she entered the next room.

She saw the chess board, but as she had never played it, she simply charged up her snakeheads and started sending blasts of energy at all the pieces. (EN2) 

After all of them were shattered, she walked to the next room, where she negligently killed a troll before continuing on.

The avenger looked at the riddle, the potions, and the magical flames. Not wanting to test her magic resistance, she solved the puzzle, which meant that this challenge was the only one that had even slowed her down, for all of five minutes, since her better than human senses could tell the poison and wine easily.

She then stood in front of the mirror, with her thoughts being, _that's it? All that trouble for a mirror?_

Facing the mirror, she saw herself, holding what looked like a baby with wings and reptilian parts, and standing beside her were Lancer, Rider, and what looked like an adult Harry. The man looked at her and gave her a special smile, before pulling out a red stone, and after examining her, and her lack of pockets placed it in her cleavage. 

At that moment the women felt something warm and hard in her cleavage, and looking down she saw the stone that the man had put in her reflection's cleavage.

Feeling a strong sense of longing, she tore her eyes from the mirror and astralized with the stone in her possession. She would find out what it is, and if it was dangerous. 

On her way out she passed by a panicked Dumbledore, whom due to her state never knew the item that he was protecting had already been taken.

It was the capstone to what looked like a crappy week for the headmaster.

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Avenger joined up with Harry, after a quick trip to their rooms for a shower, so that her bloodstained visage wouldn't clue everyone into who had taken the stone. Being able to be invisible and intangible again helped her keep it a secret. Plus the fact that the Hufflepuff common room didn't have a portrait for when she tapped out the rhythm also helped.

She now just needed to start her research on what the stone is, and how to use it.

So she joined Rider in the library while Harry and lancer attended his other classes, in which nothing exceptional happened, except Harry walking out when he realized that the ghost was repeating the book verbatim.

Transfiguration was interesting for him, more due to the fact that his teacher could become an animal, than trying to make a matchstick a needle. Something he had accomplished by the end of the class

After classes had ended, and Avenger had made no progress, the quartet had assumed their, now normal meal formation.

Harry noted that he was receiving a lot of glares from his fellow housemates, and he found he really didn't care, after all, none of them, to his knowledge, had cared about _him_ when he needed someone to show they cared, and so he reciprocated.

After dinner, Harry was approached by the frazzled headmaster.

His house, seeing an opportunity, decided to approach their head of house while Harry was with the headmaster.

"Harry, come with me, alone, we need to talk," the old man said sternly.

Harry met lancer's eyes and followed the man. Lancer astralized and followed, leaving the headmaster to think Harry was alone. 

To Harry, this was a good decision because inside the headmaster's office was Severus Snape. 

"What is this about headmaster?" Harry asked while knowing full well what the issue was.

"You ignored Professor Snape and walked out of the classroom," the old man answered.

Harry looked at the two before answering, "Did he tell you how he started insulting me from the moment he entered the room? Or he asked questions about things mentioned _in passing_ at best in the prologue or first chapter of the book he assigned? Or that he took points off for me not knowing the answers? I left because he apparently decided to treat me with contempt from the moment he saw me."

"Arrogant brat, just like your father. See what I had to deal with Headmaster. He's lying!" Snape replied.

Dumbledore was taken aback by Harry's statement and winced at Snape's. His potion's professor didn't seem to realize that by his statement, he pretty much confirmed the boy's words. 

"Headmaster, as you can see, he just insulted me, again, and he called me a liar. After all, Wormwood isn't even _mentioned_ in the first chapter, and considering that he didn't even stop someone's cauldron from exploding, I figured that the sole possible redeeming quality of being in his class wouldn't happen. I chose the Adult route, since he decided to be the child, and walk away."

Snape glared at the boy, as his rage boiled over, ignoring the presence of the headmaster, he drew his wand and pointed at the boy, it's tip was glowing a vicious purple. 

The curse never left the wand as Lancer materialized and grabbed the man's wrist, and painfully twisted it until the wand was pointed at himself.

"Harry, I demanded to talk to you alone!" the old man roared, partially in anger, and partially in shock that Severus would try to use a dark curse in front of him on a student, and that he couldn't detect the girl until she acted.

"I don't trust you," Harry replied evenly, causing the old man's eyes to widen. "and it was a good thing I didn't, you didn't even make an attempt to protect me from his attack."

The old man winced at that, Harry would either be dead or in an extreme amount of pain if he had been hit by that curse. He really had no choice but to believe the boy's version of events.

"Very well, give me Professor Snape's wand, and I'll handle his discipline. You are hereby excused from his classes, he cannot assign you detention, and he is unable to take points, furthermore, the points he took from you will be refunded. Now head to your dorm, and I will have... words with him."

Lancer ripped the wand from the man, and to everybody's surprise, she got a weak reaction from it. Shaking her head she handed the wand to the old man and followed Harry out the door, only to be interrupted by Snape roaring and running after the boy with his hands outstretched, only to have a knee shattered by lancer kicking it.

With a disappointed look at both the girl and his professor, Dumbledore watched them leave.

The look turned into a glare as he watched 'his' spy writhing on the ground in pain. A quick numbing charm made him lucid enough to start ranting, "I want them expelled, no arrested for assault!" 

"You would be the one arrested Severus. You tried to curse Harry, then strangle him. I'm ordering you to leave the boy alone. If he does something wrong, tell his head of the house and she'll handle it. Do not approach him, do not talk to him, do not even look in his direction. I'm disappointed that you singled him out in class, and even more that you would attack him. He will no longer be in your class." 

The man snarled but held his tongue. Since the boy was no longer there, he realized he had screwed up, badly. It was just the fact that the son of _that man_ was here pissed him off something fierce, and the nerve of the boy to ignore him, simply made it worse. He vowed to find a way to make him pay.

His mind was going through his plans, although usually, Dumbledore isn't this harsh. 

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Harry entered his house's common room and felt the hostility in the air, all directed at him and Lancer. Ignoring it they went into his suite to do some reading, and perhaps play some of the games he had brought along. 

The house was universally upset that their head wouldn't let them discipline him for his actions that day.

In fact, she looked proud at him for them and disappointed at the actions of the rest of the house. 

The house decided that starting tomorrow, they would be taking unofficial action against the four.

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End chapter.

EN: classes at my grade/high school lasted from 8 to 2:30, so that's not including time between classes and such, about 5.5 hours of classes a day.

EN2: in Grand Order, that's how she attacks.

EN3: a bit on the long side for me, but I couldn't find a happy place to stop until now. 

EN4: if you think Dumbledore is OOC, remember he had had a BAD pair of days.

EN5: Snape was feeling far more insulted and angry than canon.


	6. Chapter 6: More confrontations

Harry and the Botched Cult Ritual

AN: this fic is now my most reviewed, and 2nd for faves and alerts.

AN2: somebody said that the Puffs were being stupid in alienating Harry, that's true, but as they don't know who his servants are, it's far less stupid than it seems. A guest implied that they know, or should know the trio's identity. I would like to point out that currently Avenger, the only one that looks anything like the myth, is covered by the trope refuge in audacity. 

AN3: someone pointed out that Avenger seems to be too invested in Harry to already be seeing her with a baby in the mirror, but I would like to point out its partially a subconscious thing, and partially the fact that acceptance, to someone like her, that has no reason to expect it, is a POWERFUL thing.

And I think I made a mistake about hours of schooling, my high school had 4 double periods a day, so that is between 6 and 7 hours of classes a day, plus half hour lunch, and a 10-minute break between classes. 

Chapter 6: More confrontations.

Harry noticed something different between him and his house the moment he walked into the common room. Whereas yesterday everybody seemed to want to interact with him, today everybody seemed to be ignoring his existence.

He much preferred how they were acting now.

Unknown to him, this was the unofficial punishment the students had devised, they would all but exclude him from their house. they would ignore his existence, prevent him from joining in any activities, and not help him in any way.

Unknown to them, they just made the boy's time in the house far more pleasant.

The day passed quickly, as with his house ignoring him, and the other houses not having much of a chance of associating with him, meant that his time was peaceful.

His head of house was frowning though. She knew it wasn't healthy for a young child to be ostracized like this, and it wasn't normal for the child in question to prefer the situation.

She would have to speak to her house. The boy needs some friends beyond the two women and the girl, or at least more his own age. (EN) 

At the same time, the headmaster was looking at the boy and thinking. He had requested copies of the engagement contracts to see if they could be broken, or at least an 'acceptable' girl added in. He also was planning on seeing if he could sell the idea of the Lancer girl attending classes officially. It would help the school by adding another student to the rolls with the tuition included, and also give him fewer headaches by allowing him to more easily keep track of at least one of his guests during class time. 

His eyes then narrowed as he noticed a familiar old owl, holding a familiar type of red letter heading for the boy he was thinking about. He groaned, knowing that this would not help his case, at least about getting Ginny engaged to the boy... at all.

It probably wouldn't help with him getting himself, or an ally to be his magical guardian again either since that family would've been his first choice. On second thought with their finances, and the number of children they were a bad choice anyway, plus they wouldn't let the boy go back to the Dursleys... probably. 

He had forgotten the owl wards he erected to prevent mail from getting to the boy was only at the Dursleys home, and not on the boy himself.

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Harry was eating when he saw an owl approaching him, and wondered why he was suddenly able to receive mail, as well as who was writing him.

He also noted that many fellow students were scooting even further away from him as he reached toward the letter.

The letter was snatched from his hand by Rider, who opened it for him, as she didn't trust it not to have a magical trap. Her magic resistance was far higher than the boy's so there was less of a risk with her opening it.

Too bad the attack was auditory, and not magic based.

" _ **How dare you reject my daughter for those whores! Your parents would be ashamed of you, shacking up with such people! I have half a mind to go there and tan your hide before dragging you and the whores to get the contracts canceled! I expect you to do it yourself young man, or else!"**_ the letter shouted, before burning itself up.

Harry glared at the ash that was remainder of the Howler, and turned to the headmaster, and asked, loud enough to be heard, and in a tone of voice that indicated that he was pissed beyond all reason, "What was that? Who was the bitch who sent it? And by what _right_ did the bitch have to send it?"

Dumbledore wanted to give Harry detention, he really did, but he couldn't find it in his heart to do so. Molly had crossed a line. He decided to answer honestly, "that was a howler, the one who sent it was Mrs. Weasley, and there are no laws about sending them." 

Harry, pissed at that decided to send a letter to his goblin account manager. He wanted to know what recourse he had to respond to this 'attack'.

Before he left Dumbledore brought Harry's attention back to him by saying, "Harry, could you and Lancer come to my office when your classes are finished? There's something I need to speak to you about."

Harry, knowing that he had something to confront Dumbledore about looked at him and nodded, and went to send his own letter before classes started.

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Shortly after the Howler was sent off Arthur had confronted his wife, unaware that she had just made things worse. He had intended to confront her the day before, but he had been called in early for an inquiry to determine his culpability, and then he had been too tired to do so when he got home. He had been given three days unpaid leave while they considered whether or not to keep him on. 

He slammed the paper from the first of September on the table in front of his wife and snarled, "Explain!"

The woman started to grow angry at her husband's tone, harshly replied, "Explain what?" 

Ginny who had just finished her breakfast gulped. She might be young, but she knew the signs of her mother about to blow her top... and she could sense that her father was about to as well.

And so, the normally even-tempered man went up like Mount St. Helens. " _ **DON'T YOU GIVE ME THAT!**_ _ **HOW DARE YOU TRY AND MAKE THAT DAMN**_ **ILLEGAL** _ **CONTRACT WITHOUT EVEN CONSULTING ME! YOU**_ **KNOW** _ **SUCH CONTRACTS**_ **REQUIRE** _ **THE HEAD OF HOUSEHOLD TO SIGN OFF ON! NOW ANSWER ME! HOW DARE YOU SET UP AN ILLEGAL CONTRACT BETWEEN OUR DAUGHTER AND HARRY POTTER!"**_

Ginny froze. It wasn't true it couldn't be! Her mother and Professor Dumbledore had both promised her that she would be Mrs. Potter! She then saw the paper they were arguing about, and since nobody had even noticed her being there before they started arguing snuck over and took it.

Her eyes started tearing up at the headline. It was a lie, it had to be!

She almost missed her mother's response due to her thoughts.

Almost.

" _ **IT'S NOT ILLEGAL! DUMBLEDORE HELPED SET IT UP! AND I WAS DOING WHAT YOU ARE UNABLE TO! I WAS SECURING OUR DAUGHTER'S, AND BY EXTENSION, OUR FAMILY'S FUTURE! ONCE GINNY MARRIES THE BOY, WE WILL FINALLY BE OUT OF THE POOR HOUSE!"**_ Molly screamed right back.

Arthur's voice lowered in volume, but his snarl increased, "and what if I'm fired from my job? What then? I'm facing an inquiry at work, and they showed me the contract! Neither of the signatures are the ones that were required! A _legal_ contract requires the signatures of the head of house, _not_ a magical guardian, or the _wife_ of the head of house! You _knew_ this and you still tried to make a contract! Now I know why you were so insistent on telling Ginny that she would be Mrs. Potter, and why you bought all that Potter trash. That ends now. I will explain to Ginny about your lies, and there will be no more of that stuff bought, our finances are tight enough without you spending it frivolously.

I will be contacting the goblins to put strict limits on what you can take out without my permission, and that will be limited to school supplies, food, and clothes until further notice!"

Molly was shocked into speechlessness. Her husband had never taken that tone with her and actually had rarely if ever argued with her method of running the household. 

Her response was halted when they both heard the other occupant in the room shout, " **How dare you lie, dad! I will marry Harry I will! Both mom and Dumbledore promised me! I hate you!"** after she shouted that Ginny left the room with tears in her eyes and the newspaper clutched in her hand.

"Now see what you did! You made our daughter cry!" Molly snarled.

"Me? What about you? You were the one lying to her for nearly a _decade!_ "

The argument would continue for hours with neither side giving an inch. One side determined to pound the fact that the other side did something wrong, while the other side believed that she could do no wrong.

The atmosphere in the house would be very tense for a long time to come.

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It was after class, and Harry was actually getting very bored with his classes. It seemed to be going at the level of the slowest member of the class. Something that was annoying him greatly, but he persevered. Of course, a spell that caused sparks from his wand was useless except as perhaps a flare, as it couldn't even set paper alight. 

Walking to the headmaster's office he gave the same password that was used the day before and hoped that it wouldn't be another hostile confrontation. 

Upon entering the office Lancer and Harry saw that they were alone with the man, and Harry at least took the offered seat. 

Dumbledore frowned as he noticed that the girl was still standing, almost as if she was expecting trouble. Setting aside those thoughts he started, "I asked you to come here because I would like to formally offer Lancer a position at this school. It wouldn't change much, except that she could have points and detentions assigned, except by Professor Snape, but it would let her learn magic with you." 

Lancer started, and started today, "What? But I'm not a..." only to be interrupted by a glance from Harry. Cutting her off from finishing with, 'a caster class servant.' 

Fortunately, the old man interpreted the missing part as 'witch' so he continued, "You caused Professor Snape's wand to react, so you have enough magic to attend, at least a few years officially. If you agree, we can take you to get your wand today and you can start practicing with it today." 

Lancer was about to ask Harry, when he said, "Your choice Lancer."

the girl cocked her head in thought, and Dumbledore noticed something very odd.

He had been paying attention to the girl's face for a few minutes and had yet to see her blink. It was very odd. 

She then sighed and nodded, realizing that this was one thing that she alone could share with Harry, before saying, "Why not, let's go get my stuff, Harry." 

Dumbledore, realizing that Harry would be coming with them anyway, accepted it and stood up, and then paused as Harry spoke.

"Dumbledore, you did something that prevented me from getting my mail at home, undo it."

"Harry, there's a reason for..." the old man started.

"I don't care, the goblins nearly executed us thinking I was insulting them. You aren't my magical guardian, so you have no reason to stop my mail, if I have to get law enforcement involved, I will. If you are worried about bad stuff in the mail, don't, I have hired the goblins to sort out and only send the safe stuff, as long as they don't fall under certain categories to me," Harry interrupted.

The old man paled as he didn't realize that he had nearly caused the boy's death, and was at least thankful that the boy was smart enough to get his mail screened. "Very well, I will remove it at the end of the year. Now let's get Lancer her supplies.

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The trip was quick, with Lancer obtaining the basic supplies, and ironically ending up with a wand of Cherry, that ironically, or perhaps not, contained a bit of her own hair. The reaction of the wand, while stronger than Snape's, showed she would only be able to reach fourth or fifth-year level spells. 

The rest of the supplies contained no surprises.

It was a laden down group that returned to Hogwarts.

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While Harry and Lancer were doing the school thing and then gaining their supplies, Avenger was getting frustrated. She knew that the stone she had obtained was special, but she couldn't find a single reference to it. Neither could rider, who had started helping, while agreeing to keep the stone a secret for now. 

The books on magical gems didn't have a single reference to a stone matching the description of the one she had obtained.

Upon returning to their shared quarters she was angry enough to not pay attention to where her tail was and it knocked over the shelf that contained their 'for fun' books. Grumbling at her clumsiness she started picking up the books when she stilled. Looking at the Manga she was holding, she walked over to where she had stashed the stone, and compared the stone on the cover to the one she was holding. They were virtually identical. Flipping through the book she noted the name of the stone, and then rushed back to the library, she now had a place to start looking. 

The Manga was left on top of the bed with the front cover on display.

"Full Metal Alchemist."

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There was a house meeting, only slightly interrupted by Avenger running out again, as Sprout was trying to get them socializing with Harry again, with little success. None of the students had even noticed that the point losses from the day before were returned. 

The meeting ended with a professor nearly pulling her hair out at the hard hardheadedness of her house, not realizing that some of the students would've supported Harry, except that they had been threatened with the same treatment.

She would have to think of another way to help stop the separation in her house.

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Harry was content with the day's progress as he snuggled with the only friends he had ever had while he drifted off to sleep.

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As he was about to go to sleep himself, Dumbledore shot up and said, "Crap, I forgot to discuss Harry's Isolation from his peers! Oh well, let's see if it will solve itself."

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End chapter

EN: only one servant _looks_ CLOSE to Harry's age.

EN2: Arthur's taking his wife to task, too late to keep things from getting worse.


	7. Chapter 7: Time passes and perspectives

Harry and the Botched Cult Ritual

AN: Going to start accelerating things, after all the last two chapters covered 3-4 days of a whole school year, at the current rate, it would take a hundred chapters to complete year one. Year two will probably be VERY short considering some things I'm doing in 1. 

_**IMPORTANT AN:**_ again, NO OTHER servants or mythical figures will appear in this story. As I said in an AN of chapter 5. Why are people ignoring this? 

Chapter 7: Time passes and perspectives.

It had been a month since Lancer had started classes, and things were going relatively well. She wasn't as powerful magically as most of her classmates, but she wasn't in the very bottom either. Academically she was in the top ten percent.

Course the fact that she and Harry cheated their asses off didn't hurt either. Mental communication wasn't traceable, and so they could share information, not only with themselves, but with Rider, and to a lesser extent Avenger, as well.

They felt no guilt about it, because the trio of servants were technically familiars, and had no problems doing so.

Snape's opinion on the two 'school-aged children' of the quartet was just as sour as usual, but he had discovered a grudging respect for them after he had poked his head into the room they were using, nominally so that he could gloat to himself that they were wasting their time by self-studying. They had successfully brewed a third-year potion on their own. They showed no originality, but he accepted that they were competent. 

To himself, he acknowledged that if you didn't need to brew twelve potions to get a basic procedure down you could pass through the book very quickly. 

Unlike Longbottom whom has melted a cauldron every other class, or Draco who spent more time sabotaging others than doing the work himself.

The less said about Weasley, Crabbe, and Goyle the better, those four not only haven't been really paying attention in class, but the only reason that the latter two have been getting acceptables in class was Draco, whose papers were an exceeds expectations. 

On the other hand, he had a very grudging approval for Harry and Lancer having several reference books other than the recipe books open, even though he sneered at one for being so basic no potion master would even glance at, as it had information so basic that it's considered common knowledge. 

A book that he never realized that people without a natural talent in potions would probably find helpful.

Shaking his head he recalled the second howler Harry had received since he started and privately agreed with the boy's actions, and especially the one he called Rider's actions. 

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Flashback.

It was the weekend after the argument sprung up in the Weasley household, and things were extremely tense and was about to get worse. 

Arthur had just received a letter from Harry, who was acting on information that his goblin adviser had given him on appropriate responses to the Howler, while at the breakfast table with his non-Hogwarts family. Harry would later add another filter to his male, that howlers were to be disposed of and the text of them delivered to him, a service that cost an additional sickle a month, and the duty of which was given to whichever goblin had screwed up the most the day before. 

Reading the letter, Arthur's hands were shaking in a rage.

 _To Arthur Weasley:_

 _I am writing to formally declare that the alliance between our houses is dissolved._

 _This is due to the insulting howler your wife sent us, text on the other parchment. There was no call for those insults, simply because I ended up engaged to someone other than your daughter._

 _Considering the actions of your youngest, and your wife, I highly doubt that we will repair the bond between our families._

 _Sincerely,_

 _Harry James Potter._

"Molly, did you send a howler to Harry?" Arthur ground out after he read the contents of the howler that had been sent to Harry.

The woman blinked, and then smiled at the memory, thinking that the boy had done as she demanded, as she answered, "Yes, why? Did that boy do the right thing and cancel the engagements?"

Arthur stood up and slammed his hands on the table startling his wife and knocking the various cups of liquid over. "No damn you! The letter I just received stated that the alliance with the Potters is over! This is due to you sending his a bloody howler! A howler you had _no right_ to send! The engagements were Potter business, not ours! You will write an apology, both for trying to engage him illegally, and the howler! And you will write it today so I can make sure it _is_ an apology!"

Mrs. Weasley was shaking in a rage, how dare the boy do this! How dare her husband demand an apology! She had done absolutely nothing wrong! "I certainly will _not_! I have done nothing wrong, that boy did! I had engaged him to our wonderful daughter, and he spat in our faces!"

Ginny looked between her parents and started sneaking off. The argument looked like it was going to explode worse than the last one. She didn't understand why her father was fighting this. It was her destiny to marry the boy who lived! On the other hand, after she had read the article better, she could kind of understand that Harry had no choice but to marry those freaks, it just meant that she would have to be the head wife. 

An idea that her mother seemed to have overlooked.

She frowned then, and had another thought, perhaps her mother wanted her to be the sole Mrs. Potter, which she could understand, she wanted that too, but that looked to be impossible, and Harry would be with those skanks for over a year before she even met the boy in person. Perhaps she needs to start writing him.

Decision made she snuck away from the table just as the actual shouting began, to start her letter.

Her letter would go unanswered, as well as her near daily when her parents weren't using Errol to send letters, attempts at correspondence. 

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The next day at Hogwarts saw another red letter being delivered to Harry.

The letter started screaming _**"How dare..."**_ before Rider Grabbed the letter in her hand, causing the letter to become muffled as her fist with the letter was submerged in a pitcher of pumpkin juice. She kept it under until it stopped squirming, and it was unable to burst into flame. 

Leaving the letter submerged she turned to Harry and asked, "Could you contact the goblins about preventing those from coming in? Just like they do for other dangerous mail."

Harry nodded and smiled as Avenger thanked Rider for protecting her poor ears. 

Harry felt there wasn't a need for further action against that family, even though he didn't know the damage he had caused with that families unity.

If the woman sending those escalated beyond shouting, he would revisit the idea.

Turning towards the head table, he noted grudging respect on the face of the professor he hated most and was minorly surprised by it. 

The headmaster's face was showing disappointment on the other hand and seemed to be more directed at the letter than him. With a nod at both of them, he continued his meal. 

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Shaking his head, and returning to the present, Snape walked off, musing that he wished half his snakes had the boy-he-hates patience and subtlety.

He recalled what he had heard of the flight lessons, in how his godson had, in front of the whole first year, swiped Longbottom's Rememberall and tried to hide it.

The boy had been given a weeks detention and had tried to say he would tell his father. 

A threat that as time went on without the man being seen was falling flat, and just last week, everybody's suspicions, well besides the man's son, was born out. 

Almost everybody who makes a will also sets up a heartstone. The heartstone was a heart-shaped stone that via runes and blood was attuned to the life of an individual. The stone would shatter if the person dies, but the downside of this method was that the older the will, the longer it would take to break. 

There were cases of a stone shattering over a year after death.

Draco's world shattered that day, and oddly the next day, all the roosters in the school died. Draco also refused to take time off to spend time with his mother to grieve thinking that the letter from the goblins had been a hoax.

He also continued to use his father as a threat, but with the man's death being confirmed, it was falling flat.

He frowned at the fact that Lancer was an official student, but shrugged he couldn't actually do anything about it, or her.

He turned toward his classroom, a classroom that he had to teach some of the most incompetent first years in the last seven years.

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Meanwhile, Avenger was experimenting with her new stone and managed to create her first bit of gold. It wasn't much, just a thumbnails worth, but it was a start. 

The few books on alchemy she found were little help in her endeavor. She had been more interested in the elixir of life than gold, simply due to it's healing properties. 

The life-extending part was less important to her, as she wouldn't outlive Harry by much anyway. 

She growled in frustration at how long it was taking to learn how to use the damn stone.

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Rider's lips quirked as she felt Avenger's frustration, but was not so secretly glad the monster was occupied, as it made less of a chance that she would go on a killing spree against those that were trying to annoy the quartet.

Or the ones that tried to hit on her or Lancer, she thought with a frown. There were some students who thought that the two more human versions of herself should be dating them, or at least give them a roll in the hay. 

Lancer and she had several dozen offers of both simply sex or being paid to have sex as if they were prostitutes.

Of course, the number of crude jokes they both have endured and kept from Harry was also greatly annoying. From "How I would like to RIDE her,"(EN) to "Lancer eh, how I want to introduce her to my LANCE."

The two had kept the comments and offers from Harry because they knew that he would go nearly berserk.

Rider frowned. She knew that Harry was unhealthily dependent on her, and due to the dream cycle where she saw his memories, she knew why.

Being the only people who were ever nice to him, and have proven to him that he could trust them, made him clingy, and made him emotionally dependent on them.

He needs to find other friends, ones that aren't bound to him. The problem was there were few that both looked trustworthy, _and_ weren't terrified of Avenger.

She had looked at the Weasley twins for a while but backed off due to their brother and mother. 

Hopefully in a year or two someone will be able to meet her standards to befriend Harry.

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In a home that was in the shape of a rook, a pretty blonde with seemingly unfocused eyes sneezed.

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Shaking her head the purple haired woman turned back to her book. She needed to find some way to spend time with Harry, Lancer is spending a lot of time with him in his classes.

His training is going to start soon, and she had ordered copies of both her weapons and Lancers, hopefully, when his training started they would become even closer, although she seems to be the one that Harry comes to for comfort more. 

Avenger was one that was closer romantically to him and his primary protector.

Lancer was the one that he treated as closest to his own age and best friend. 

She remembered how he had reacted to their true identities.

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It was a few days before the school year started, and the quartet were around the kitchen table. It was time to do something that two of them had been dreading. The third knew it wouldn't matter after all the boy had known she was a monster and not only accepted her but had been affectionate. 

"Harry, we have decided you need to know who we were in life," Rider started.

Harry blinked, he hadn't expected them to come clean. He had already figured it out of course, simply because Rider and Avenger looked almost identical once you ignored the reptilian parts of the latter.

The fact that Lancer looked younger than the other two, but had many of the same features made the leap of logic not that hard.

"Medusa, right?" he said with a smirk.

All three looked at the boy in shock, and he explained. "You had explained about servants, and it wasn't exactly hard to figure out who Avenger was, as not many legends have snakes for hair. Removing the scales, change the eyes, and extra parts, and she looks nearly identical to Rider.

Lancer looks like a young version of Rider, so could either be a sister, or a younger self. I assumed the latter.

I want to say, it doesn't matter, you are the ones I care about."

He smiled as the two human looking servants swept him up in a hug, and noted the smile, a gentle one for her, on the last one's face.

He was now, happy and warm in the embrace of the two, believing that the contract was made through fate.

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Fate was looking at copies of the contracts with a WTF expression. The being was wondering how a boy's future could be thrown so off course, as well as the other fates he had screwed up, but sighed, at least it looks like he would complete the prophesy easier.

She was also enjoying how frustrated Destiny was getting while trying to discover who's destiny and fate went down the screwy path. 

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With a sigh, Medusa returned to the present with a smile. She knew that as the boy aged he would have more in common with her. 

She looked forward to it.

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End chapter.

EN: Say "RIDE her" fast aloud, and it sounds like Rider.

EN2: Servant stats:

Avenger

Strength: A++

Endurance: A++

Agility: B

Mana: B

Luck: D

NP: A

Lancer

Strength: C

Endurance: D

Agility: A

Mana: E

Luck: C

NP: A+

and Rider

Strength: B

Endurance: D

Agility: A

Mana: B

Luck: E

NP: A+

I have to say, I pity anyone that tries anything with any of them, especially avenger with her stats that by the rankings, should've IMO put her at 5 stars.


	8. Chapter 8: Halloween

Harry and the Botched Cult Ritual.

 _ **Looking for fic:**_ I forgot its name, but it's a Suikoden V fic, where at the end Byakuren (the white snake) gained a mostly human form when the prince used the sun rune to try and remove the beast rune from the leopard guy. The prince had the dusk, dawn, AND sun runes, and the bodyguard from the game didn't survive. I have no idea whether I just forgot to fave it, or if it was, annoyingly, taken down. 

AN: I _**DO NOT**_ like the first part of this chapter. But I was jammed on how to proceed with it, so I powered through it.

Chapter 8: Halloween.

Time passed swiftly for the quartet, they attended classes, got annoyed by certain Slytherins and Gryffindors, and did there homework.

Hufflepuff, his own house, continued to ignore Harry, and those that would have wanted to be his friend were too intimidated by the rest of the house to attempt it.

On the plus side Avenger finally figured out how to create the Elixir of Life.

On the negative side, she started paying attention to the other students, and how they were hitting on her fellow Medusas, and in a few brave, or foolish, cases, Harry.

It was only Harry assurances that he had no interest in the other females that calmed her, and prevented her from going on a rampage.

Plus the fact that they often went on flights with him in her arms.

Rider soon started to do the same with her Pegasus.

An interesting thing happened the day before Halloween, the divination professor gave a prophecy to an empty room. 

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If anybody had been in the room with her, it would have looked like Professor Trelawney was having a seizure. She soon stopped and gave her second ever prophesy, " _Fate shattered, plans crossing, monsters will clash, and the horror will be unleashed, only to fail in its task. The book in the possession of bad faith will unleash the horror, ruining the plans of the possessor. The monster of serpents shall stop the horror, but fail to save bad faith."_

She then shook her head, wondering about the dizziness she experienced, before drinking some of her sherry.

She also wondered why she wanted to start preparing a funeral for a ferret.

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Soon enough it was Halloween, and any professor that actually gave a damn about Harry was concerned, as he had no friends among the students, except for Lancer.

Dumbledore especially was becoming very concerned. He needed Harry to obtain connections to others, as he currently could leave the country without guilt since the only people he cares about would join him in a heartbeat. He was also worried because his friend's stone was missing. He managed to conceal the fact that it had been stolen, and a fake was left in its place, but his friend will be pissed if he couldn't find it again. 

He also needed to prod Harry into investigating the third floor. The problem was he had no way to do that without making it obvious.

He had a plan using Harry's cloak and a subtle compulsion to get the boy in front of a copy of the mirror, that he made using a few runes to channel the power of the real mirror.

His thoughts turned toward avenger, the only one of the women attached to Harry that didn't look human. He had been doing research on what she could be, and the only answer he found he had discarded immediately.

After all, Medusa had been just a myth, and even if she had been real, she had been killed by a hero. 

It was obvious to him that the three were related somehow, and he was guessing sisters. His current thoughts were that the three had done some dark rituals on the eldest to increase her physical abilities, and perhaps her magical ones.

The side effect of which turned her into a monster, which would mean that the rituals she underwent were darker than the ones Riddle performed on himself.

Unfortunately, the marriage contracts were the closest any contract could be to iron cast, and it would take a desperate person to try and get out of them.

He did have a plan to try and get Harry back in his custody, but he had to think if it was worth the animosity to even try it since it was a bit of a long shot.

He was brought out of his contemplation, when his DADA professor ran in the room screaming, "Troll! Troll in the dungeon! " his voice the went to a normal tone of voice, then he finished, "I thought you should know."

He then appeared to collapse backward in a dead faint.

Dumbledore frowned, he knew the professor was possessed, and he hoped to force a confrontation between him and Harry, one that Harry would survive.

He needed Harry to know about the Dark Lord still being around so that when the time is right, he would accept Dumbledore's training. 

With a sigh, he distractedly ordered the prefects to take everybody back to their dorms. 

Then it struck him how stupid the order was since it put half the houses on a direct collision course with the troll. 

" _ **WAIT,**_ " he bellowed, and then in a calmer voice announced, "all students are to wait here until the troll is dealt with. Prefects, if the troll breaks in here, concentrate your spellwork on it. Professors, help me find and deal with the troll."

He then rushed out of the room with most of the rest f the professors on his heels.

He didn't even notice how there was an odd two-toned cursing coming from the downed professor. 

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The professors relatively quickly cleared the dungeons and the basement. Then they split up to find it on the other seven floors. 

Dumbledore and Trelawney found the troll outside the second-floor bathrooms. 

They found it dead, and a cat and girl petrified along with a very large puddle of water... and a message written in blood.

"Enemies of the heir beware... the chamber of secrets has been opened."

Dumbledore frowned at the message. Crap, that's all he needed. The damn chamber, again, while Harry is being a loose cannon in regards to his plans.

At least the troll is dealt with, and nobody important, any students that is, were permanently injured

frowning he made a note to tell Professor sprout to make sure her mandrakes survive so that a potion could be made to help the victims.

He just hoped that he could get to the horror within the chamber before there were more victims, and find out who released whatever it is _this_ time.

He sent Trelawney back to the students to tell them the troll had been taken care of, and to get the students back to their dorms.

It was while he was starting to levitate the petrified bodies to the hospital wing, that his least favorite of the women Harry was engaged to found him.

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Meanwhile, Avenger was walking around the school since she had already eaten. Harry doesn't mind the fact that she prefers her meat raw but correctly pointed out that others might and he didn't want to deal with vomit while eating. 

Especially since she prefers her meat to be literally bloody.

She was currently following the trail of some Parseltongue she had been hearing, and it had led her to the second floor.

She had also been practicing her demonic mutation ability. She had managed to retract both her tail and wings, but she couldn't do anything about her claws or scales.

At least she was sure she could reasonably go out in the muggle world. She would get strange looks, but as long as she wore more than she normally did it wouldn't be _too_ bad.

She gave a sigh. She had fallen for her master, hard. She wondered when exactly it had started though.

She shook her head to dispel her thoughts. He was way too young by modern standards to go any further with and would've actually been a bit too young in ancient Greek as well.

She paused, as she had just turned a corner, and saw the headmaster levitating a girl and a cat, as well as an unmarked dead troll. Curious she approached and asked, "What happened here?"

Dumbledore sighed as he responded, "there was an attack. She's been petrified, and will remain so until mid-March when the mandrakes are mature to brew the cure." 

Avenger wanted to groan. Another problem, right after she had finished solving the puzzle of the third floor. "If you tell me what you think happened, I'll carry the girl for you on the way to the medical wing," she said. At his look, she clarified, "I don't care if you drop and shatter her or not, I'm primarily worried that the same thing will happen to Harry. If helping you, gets me the information to protect him, then I'll help you."

Dumbledore frowned. He didn't like how callous the woman seemed towards the girl, but he at least couldn't fault her for wanting to protect Harry.

He was confused. In his experience, most people who use dark rituals to gain power, don't care about others enough to try and protect others. 

He would have to think about just what drives that woman.

So he decided to observe as he described how he found the troll, girl, and cat. He also mentioned the previous incident. 

He saw that she was contemplative, so he asked, "Can you tell me what rituals you underwent to become what you are?"

She looked at him, and after thinking about it, saw to reason not to answer, "None. Due to how others treated me, and some incidents, as well as magics affecting me, my body became twisted like this on its own." she then hesitated, and then gave an internal smirk, as she decided to play the sympathy card. "I went mad and ate my sisters... two of them at least," she finished, a slight pause was present because she had to add something to the truth, which was still one hundred percent truthful, but in a way to make him assume that her fellow servants were sisters instead of her. "Harry has been good for me, and I hope I have been good for him, he's helping me maintain what humanity I have left, simply by accepting me without reservations.

Dumbledore was thrown off by her explanation. It sounded a lot like Medusa's legend, but Medusa only _had_ two sisters. He also winced at how she described how Harry was helping her, although that's a good thing when you add in the fact that he apparently doesn't care about species.

He would have to think more about how to deal with the three women, as they appear to be, well at least one of them, more attached to Harry than he had assumed. 

It was worrying. His plans needed Harry to marry a pureblood, to help with the stability of the magical world, and increase his influence. Marrying traditionally would show the traditionalists that he would uphold their traditions.

With a sigh, he noticed that they had reached the hospital wing, and the girl was deposited gently on a bed before the woman walked out.

She now had a project of her own, as unlike Rider she wasn't a big reader, and unlike Lancer she wasn't going to class.

It would also keep her from killing some of the girls who keep talking about taking their Harry.

Upon arriving at the location of the attack again, she frowned.

She smelled a snake. Using a claw she managed to get a small sample of the blood and tasted it.

It was chicken blood. Why someone would use chicken blood was beyond her, as using human blood would leave a greater impact.

With a sigh, she decided that she would need to hit the books... _again_. Hopefully, Rider would help again. 

With a smirk, she thought she would ask McGonagall a favor, one that would make solving the mystery more fun.

After all, wearing a female extremely skimpy version of Sherlock Holmes outfit, one modified for her normal body, complete with hat, is the perfect thing to solve a mystery with! (EN) She had read a book or two of that series, but she didn't have that much patience to read for five to ten hours at a time to keep her occupied during Harry's class time and homework time. 

At present the risk is minimal, after all, it was only released the first time once, so it probably won't be released again, so she could afford to have some fun with it. 

She would hit herself in a few weeks for thinking that.

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End chapter.

EN: why can't she have fun like that? And the skimpy part is because... well look at what she wears in grand order, 3rd ascension.

EN2: Refuge in Audacity strikes!


	9. Ch9: Inspections, and what does the

Harry and the Botched Cult Ritual.

Author rant: this is about Mordred. Everybody seems to have her introduce herself as Saber of Red upon summoning. This is actually _incorrect_ except in a Grand Holy Grail War, and even then only if summoned for red faction. The 'of red' part is in reference to the faction color, not her herself.

Story idea that I don't have enough knowledge for: Only RWBY knowlage I have id from Grimm Eclipse and fanfics, but here's idea if someone wants to run with it. Harry adopted by either Ruby, or Neo (or both if you want to do that pairing).

AN: do the previous, and possibly this chapter look suddenly center aligned to anybody else?

AN2: this is a very non-Harry focused chapter. I wanted to give some other perspectives.

Chapter 9: Inspections, and what does the other side think?

The Dark Lord was annoyed. He had a plan to distract the teachers, but it went wrong because the old fool cared about his students. The fact that there were petrifactions and the troll died from unknown causes confused him. It almost sounded like Snaky-poo was loose, but that's impossible. Lucius would know better than send his diary to the school without permission.

He swore to himself again, for the hundredth time, that nobody would find out the name his ancestor gave the basilisk. He would die from embarrassment.

He wanted to shake his head to clear it, but being grafted to the head of one of his servants prevented it.

He then paused. Then started swearing. Lucius is dead and has been for who knows how long. The Diary could be here, Possibly in Draco's hands, and there was no excuse his host can have to search the boy's property. 

He needed a body of his own if only to get someone competent on his side. 

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A diary was confused. Draco had told it that a troll had been killed on the second floor.

What was a troll doing at Hogwarts? Had the headmaster completely lost it? He didn't think the old man had it in him to be lax enough to allow trolls to wander about.

He hoped that he could either take over the boy's body or drain it dry to create one of his own. 

The soul fragment inside the book thought he could use the body, and life, far better than the body's current owner.

He just wished he could change the snake's name. 

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Minister Fudge was in the office of the head of the DMLE. He was pissed.

"Amelia, I demand you tell me what you are doing to find out what happened to Lucius!" the minister shouted. The man was angry because he hadn't obtained the usual bribes from the now confirmed dead man for months.

The woman across from him sighed. "Where do we start? Due to how heartstones work, we have no idea when he died, and his heir already said he won't get us the information on when the will was updated so we can make a good guess. So we have no idea when, or where he died, or even _if_ there was a crime, to begin with, so tell me, what do you expect me to do?" she asked snidely. 

"That's your job," the man said, although privately he agreed it seemed rather hard.

"It's a cold case already. Last we knew, according to his wife was that he had a business appointment a months ago, and he never returned. The man he met died of a heart attack a week after the appointment, so we can't even check whether he made it to the appointment. He could have died anywhere in the world, and we would have no idea where to _start_ looking," Amelia explained, although privately she thought that the man dying was a boon to England, and if it was murder, would like to shake the hand of the person after cuffing him/her.

If she had known the situation she would have hugged the person that did it, because it was done legally as self-defense and defense of another.

The minister stormed out, knowing that that argument was sound, and there was nothing he could do about it.

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Near a trash dump, a homeless man was eating a meal he purchased after selling a silver mask he found in the dump to a pawn shop for a few hundred pounds after washing off the blood.

But he has absolutely nothing to do with what's going on, so let's leave him to his meal. 

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Draco was pissed. His father had been reported dead, he had been blacking out, Harry was ignoring him, Harry had three attractive freaks as future wives, he was in the bottom third of the majority of his classes, his mother couldn't access the majority of the Malfoy funds due to how his father had set up the vault to limit her access, _he_ couldn't access anything but his trust vault due to his age.

Fortunately, the taxes were preauthorized so he wouldn't have to worry about losing his home, but the businesses had to run themselves... without supervision, and the family had to hope the ones running it were honest. This was due to his father not trusting her to run them correctly. 

Tom tried to 'help' him, and 'listened' to his written rants. Poring his heart out seemed to help, although the blackouts seemed to be coming more often. 

He had one a couple of weeks after Halloween, Crabbe, and Goyle were petrified that same day. 

He didn't believe there was a connection between the blackouts and attacks, how could there be?

The monster freak of Harry's was seen investigating the attack site in an odd outfit, with a pipe that spewed out multi-colored bubbles.

Weirdo.

He had asked Tom about the blackouts, and he said it was caused by stress.

He hoped they would stop during Christmas break.

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Five days later Avenger was looking at the attack site and was trying to piece together what the heck was happening. Avenger was becoming concerned. The attack happened again, and all she had to go on was hearing Parseltongue, dead chickens, and the smell of a snake that was strong near the girl's bathroom. Rider had refused to help at initially because it looked like it was a one-time incident. 

McGonagle was all too happy to transfigure the clothing, and threw in the pipe for a chuckle, just to occupy the monster woman. 

The second attack changed her tune, and now she was searching for magical snakes.

The problem was that the Hogwarts library was badly sorted. Oh, it was sorted by type of magic, but other than that, the books were just shoved into place. 

So Avenger decided to try and puzzle out the physical clues when she noticed spiders. 

Spiders that were universally heading away from a single bathroom.

She was about to follow when she heard someone approaching, and considering that this corridor had been being avoided, she astralized and waited. 

She saw that annoyance Draco approaching. It was odd, what was odder was the blank look in his eyes, and that he entered the girl's bathroom.

Narrowing her eyes she followed.

She heard him hiss, "Open," and an eyebrow rose as a sink lowered and the opening to a pipe become visible.

She backed off at this point, not out of fear, but because she wanted to know what she was dealing with before confronting whatever is causing the problem. 

Or at least have more information. She would hand the problem to the headmaster for now, but if he doesn't do anything... then it's her turn.

So she turned from the site of the next attack to find the headmaster.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.

An hour later she was stomping to the room she shared with the others.

The man would do nothing with what she brought him. He either didn't believe her, or he decided that it wasn't that important. She didn't know which.

She would wait and see, if there was an attack after what she saw, she would stake out the location, and take out both the boy and whatever he's unleashing.

She did take the time to tell Rider that they need to hurry up and find out the possibilities on what exactly was causing this so she would have some idea of what was going on.

She didn't care if he was under some sort of control or not, he was threatening her Harry.

Besides, the chamber of secrets would be a great place to have the privacy to take him out.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.

Rider was smiling. She had found the most likely candidate for the creature causing this, and started copying the information onto a piece of parchment.

A basilisk. It fit all the conditions, a snake, a gaze that can kill, and after further research she found out that indirect eye contact petrifies.

She also believes that the mystic eyes of the trio of servants would counteract the snake's eyes as they were the highest level eyes.

If not, those glasses they often use to block their eyes in case they lose control would do the trick. 

Of course, the possibility exists to be able to command it themselves. For one was a fallen goddess, one was a mortal goddess, and one held the vast majority of their divinity. 

It would be the first two that confronted the giant snake.

For she would do what the meaning of her name suggests.

She would protect, and Harry was the one that she was bound to and her primary protection target. 

Slamming the book shut, she put it back on the shelf and left the library. 

She would have to prepare for the confrontation.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.

Dumbledore was thinking. Avenger had brought him the information about the Malfoy heir opening the chamber, or at least what she believed was the chamber.

Unfortunately, he had no proof, not even circumstantial evidence... just then he was interrupted by Minerva barging in. 

"Albus, there was another attack! Percy Weasley and Penelope Clearwater are dead!" she shouted in both anger and frustration.

Dumbledore put his head in his hands and made a decision. He couldn't simply take the boy into custody on Avengers word, the purebloods would have his head. 

He actually believed the monster, as far as what she had actually seen and heard. The problem was that she was so obviously not human, that the purebloods would dismiss her testimony without evidence, or even with evidence in many cases.

So he had no choice, he would let the one of the three he likes the least take care of the problem.

He hoped she would save the boy as well, but that was doubtful considering the insults he gave the quartet.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.

In another location, Ginny frowned. It felt like somebody was taking another part of her destiny from her, and she also felt that she was fine with it. 

She looked at her recently completed letter and hoped that Harry would respond to it this time. 

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.

Destiny groaned. That world that he was still trying to find keeps going down the screwy path. He had narrowed it down to a Harry Potter that was screwed up. He just needed to find out which one of the many screwed up Harrys that is causing this particular headache.

He just hoped it wasn't one of the Fate Universe Harrys those always gave him migraines.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.

Lancer frowned as she heard through the students that there were two more deaths presumably via the monster of the chamber. It wasn't like Avenger to wait this long to deal with a problem, especially how she took care of the third floor the first day.

" _Avenger, what exactly is taking you so long to take care of this?"_ she mentally sent to her fellow servant. 

" _We just figured out what is in the chamber, Rider and I are going to stake out the entrance until the one doing it comes back, and then we'll take out whatever it is, and the snake at the same damn time. Harry asked us not to make trouble, and if he dies in the chamber, who's to say that the monster didn't kill him?"_ Avenger replied.

Lancer smiled a bit coldly since Harry was looking for a book to read in his trunk. He had been going through them faster than he had liked. There was a serious _lack_ of stuff to do in Hogwarts. He had expected many fun magical games, even with his house shunning him, and what he found was almost nothing.

"Harry," she started, and after he looked at her, she continued, "the practice weapons came in yesterday, why don't we start training with them?

Harry sagged in relief, finally, something to cure his boredom.

Lancer smiled as well. The less time Harry spent in the castle with whatever it is loose, the safer he would be.

As the two walked off to start their training, Harry had a distinct feeling that there was something going on that the girls were not telling him. Shrugging it off as unimportant, he picked up a long wrapped package and followed his servant out of Hogwarts. 

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.

Draco felt a chill run down his spine, he didn't know the cause, but he didn't like it.

Perhaps Tom could help him.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.

In one of the many hells, there existed a long table. On the table, there were stacks of exceedingly complicated paperwork. 

There were chairs of various types lining the table. Some uncomfortably hard, others having spikes on the seat and back.

In those chairs were some of the ones that have sinned in life. And for those that think that they could just not do the paperwork, well their chair will downgrade until they start, and will downgrade for every mistake.

They can earn their old chairs back if they do it correctly for a short time. 

Three of those kept together were a family that hated anything that didn't conform to what they thought was normal. Their chairs were uncomfortable and cold stone since their sins were relatively light. 

There would normally be a fourth, but he was only eleven when he died, and was simply following his parent's lead, so he gets a bit of a pass, and was thrown into the reincarnation cycle.

A fourth chair had been moved into their grouping. In it was a blonde man. His chair had five-inch spikes, and his legs were nailed to it. 

A fifth chair, uncomfortable as hell but not intrinsically painful had been added, but it was currently empty. The occupant could have the same arguments as the other child, but in his case he actually got people killed.

The three were the adults of the Dursley family, and the paperwork they were filling out, correctly, were reports about Harry's, and his servants, lives. They also had video feeds so they could keep up to date. They were sickened that their deaths, as well as the other deaths, summoned forth three freaks and made Harry happy, but they continued with the reports so that they wouldn't get worse chairs. 

This was truly hell for them.

The blonde man was filling out the paperwork for his son's inevitable demise.

He wasn't happy about that.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.

Three days later two servants saw Draco enter the bathroom again... followed five minutes later by professor stutters-a-lot.

Shrugging their shoulders the two followed.

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End chapter.

I'm saving the confrontation for the next chapter. 


	10. Chapter 10: The chamber

Harry and the Botched Cult Ritual.

 _ **AUTHOR MESSAGE: STOP SUGGESTING FIC IDEAS, IT IS**_ **REALLY** ** _GETTING IRRITATING!_** Thank you. I will be posting same message on all future updates, because I get bloody requests almost every time I update a chapter, often for crosses I know absolutely _nothing_ about.

AN: a point from a review in chap 2 or 3. Ginny is a year younger than Harry, and Harry was orphaned at age 1 year 3 months so yes, she was born.

AN2: unless I add in something, year 2 will be very very short.

Chapter 10: The chamber.

CLASH! CLANG! THUD!

These were the sounds of two people clashing scythes for training. One was a boy who was flat on his back, and coincidentally his landing also caused he thud. The training had been going on for hours, and the boy was coated in sweat and bruises, but still game to continue.

His opponent, who looked like a young teen, on the other hand, was pristine. She was also worried. She had been asked to keep Harry occupied while the other two servants took care of the chamber.

Harry had no homework left, his 'for fun' books have been read, and he was honestly sick of learning at this point, so she took another option, one that he had expressed interest in. Physical training.

A lot of it. She was determined to exhaust him to the point that she had to carry him back to his room, and he'll sleep until morning.

He was already flagging, and she estimated that another half hour or so would put him down for the count.

The fact that she was training him to defend himself with a weapon instead of just magic was a bonus, although she thinks Rider's training would be better later on, as her weapons are more concealable.

Or perhaps find some sort of way to hide them on his person and let him retrieve it quickly.

She would have to see, she thought as she negligently blocked Harry's rough attack.

"Use your torso, not just your arms. To swing a weapon like this, it requires your entire body to put in the effort, arms, shoulders, back, and hips all add to the power," she instructed the boy, then blocked a better swing. "better, you certainly don't lack aggression. My turn to go on the offensive."

She then attacked the boy while holding back the vast majority of her speed and power.

He was still sent on his ass.

"Widen your stance while blocking, I know I'm stronger than you, but a proper stance can mitigate that, also work on deflecting my attacks, that takes less power."

Harry nodded and stood up again and started adjusting his stance. It took him a few minutes performing minor adjustments, but then it clicked, and he felt far more stable.

He was still sent stumbling back, but he didn't completely lose his balance.

Then he dropped his weapon, his hands were so tired he couldn't keep a hold of his training scythe.

Then his knees gave out.

Lancer gave a small smile, and said, "I guess that's enough for today, let's get back to our rooms to clean up."

She then grabbed both of the practice scythes and strapped them to her back, and to Harry's embarrassment, picked him up bridal style.

Although he was too tired and sore to complain, in fact, he fell asleep while she was carrying him to the rooms.

As bad luck would have it, they met a professor on the way back to the dorms.

"Miss Lancer, why are you carrying weapons and Harry like that?" McGonagall asked sternly.

"He requested to learn weapon craft, so I was teaching him. He's just tired," Lancer explained. "There's no school rule against learning, or even carrying weapons as long as they aren't used on students beyond training."

The old woman's mouth thinned but found she couldn't argue. The fact that Harry wanted to learn how to use weapons is unusual, at least for the last century, as fencing and swordcraft was once taught at Hogwarts.

Waving the boy carrying girl away the old woman wondered why she pushed Harry that far, and how she had enough experience to teach him, and why she didn't have any bruises or cuts, or even a drop of sweat.

Tabling those thoughts, she headed towards her meeting with the headmaster about the death/petrifaction situation.

Unknown to her, the problem was being solved.

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While Lancer was beating the hell out of Harry, Avenger and Rider were following a stuttering teacher in astral form. Both of them could have taken the guy out at any time, but they wanted to know of any passwords that were needed.

As they would probably need them to get out.

They soon entered the chamber of secrets, and Draco Malfoy was there, and he really didn't look good.

The two servants hadn't paid much attention to him, as he had been avoiding Harry, and so were mildly surprised at his condition, and the fact that apparently his fellow students, along with the professors hadn't noticed, or cared.

His once immaculate hair was now shaggy, his clothing was in a similar condition, his eyes sunken, and his skin pale and waxy.

In his hands, he held a black book.

"So, the foolish boy had my journal," a voice said from Quarrel's turban.

"And who are you?" a younger but similar voice came from the boy.

Avenger decided to move into position while sending a mental message to Rider, _"I'll be behind the boy, and after they stop talking I'll take him out. The book he has is probably responsible for this, so I'll either grab and/or destroy it."_

Rider sighed, it didn't feel right to kill a child, but the boy had killed, and was a threat to her master.

One that couldn't be allowed to continue.

" _Fine Avenger, I'll take out the two voiced one,"_ she sent back.

"I am Lord Voldemort my Horcrux!" the voice from the man declared.

"And here I am, a younger fragment poised to regain a body before you. Tell me, why shouldn't I just absorb _you_ after I finish taking over this body? I think I'll be done before I leave here today," the voice from the boy smugly asked.

"Do you really think the enchantment's that created you would allow that? You are a weapon, one designed to open the chamber at _my_ command!" snarled the other voice.

The man who was hosting the voice put his hands to his temple, his master was giving him a headache.

"Really, let me show you how far I have come, _Speak to me Slytherin, greatest of the Hogwarts Four."_ the boy said, finishing in Parseltongue.

A giant snake slithered out from a statue which had its mouth opened by the command.

" _Kill that one,"_ the boy commanded.

" _No! Kill that one!"_ the voice from the man replied.

Avenger smirked, and allowed her voice to be heard, " _Kill them both._ "

Her voice, which was a goddess associated with monsters... and snakes, had far more authority than two that had a gift that was generations removed from the one who had received it.

There was also the fact that her order allows both other orders to be fulfilled.

Rider face palmed while smirking. She then hissed out, _"Yes, kill both of them."_

Normally Rider would try and save the boy, except that he had caused deaths, and put her master into an unsafe situation.

Plus the fact that he looked like death warmed over meant he likely was dying anyway.

The giant snake now had a way to complete all the tasks, swatted the possessed professor hard enough to shatter all his bones with her tail, while he decided to just eat the smaller one.

She would later wish she did the opposite, as a fang caught on something when she was swallowing the boy, something that screamed more shrilly than the boy and spewed some foul-tasting mixture of ink and blood ion her tongue.

It was too bad snakes don't vomit because she really really wanted to.

After finishing with the first male, she decided to eat the other one, who was trying to crawl away.

A bit surprised that the person hadn't died from the impact, the snake enjoyed a second course, one that had another shrill scream, and foul smoke coming from her mouth.

After the snack, she looked around and hissed, _"Now who gave those orders?"_

Both servants returned to their physical form, and the snake looked them over and had the feeling that it should submit to them, which it had no problem with.

So she set her head down near the monstrous one and closed her eyes. _"I am under your command mistress."_

Avenger sighed. She had expected to fight and kill the damn snake, now it was submitting to them.

She absently leaned against the scaly wall of flesh and stroked its nose. She now had a choice, kill it and be done with it, or keep it and have to deal with keeping it obedient and away from Harry... or...

" _Snake, can you control your gaze? I know it's too much to ask for you to control your size, but can you control who you kill by looking at them?"_ Avenger asked, earning a shocked look from Rider.

If a snake could smirk, it would. _"I can do both mistress, but I can't really shrink until I finish digesting my meal. After that, I can shrink to about ten feet long, and four inches wide at my smallest."_

" _Very well, I accept your service, as long as you don't attack anybody that isn't a danger to_ my _master,"_ Avenger said with a smirk, she then noticed the book on the fang, and removed it. _"and when you can shrink I'll bring you out, how long will that be anyway?"_

" _Give me a few weeks,"_ came the reply.

"Are you sure about this Avenger? Wouldn't having a large snake around be harmful to Harry's reputation?" Rider asked. She didn't _really_ care about the reputation beyond whether it would cause Harry problems.

She wasn't too proud to acknowledge she was beginning to fall for her young master.

" _If it even attempts to betray us, it dies,"_ came the cold response. It was said in Parseltongue so the full impact would hit the snake.

The snake gave a full-bodied shudder, but was pleased, she had no intention of betraying her mistress... especially since she could _get out_ of this damn chamber!

" _What's your name basilisk?"_ Rider asked gently.

If the snake could wince, it would, but it answered anyway, _"Snaky-poo, Slytherin named me Snaky-poo."_

Avenger stilled in outrage, and something almost approaching humor.

" _Your new name is Rhea. I refuse to call you by that demeaning name,"_ Avenger stated blandly.

" _Thank you, mistress, I have always hated that name,"_ the basilisk replied.

" _One of us, or our younger... er... sister, will be back in a few weeks,"_ Rider stated, and turned to leave with Avenger following.

Upon returning to their quarters, they split up, with Avenger going to tell the headmaster that the problem had been solved, and Rider entered the quarters, where she found Lancer attempting to massage a soon to be sore Harry.

Attempting, because she was trying it out a book, one that she was trying to apply while she was reading it. Her attempt was decent, but wouldn't be all that helpful.

Harry was currently so far asleep he didn't even notice the attempt.

She stopped when she saw Rider.

"That was fast," she stated.

"Well, it was simpler than we thought, all we had to do was tell the basilisk to kill the two that went down there, and then we apparently gained the loyalty of a sixty-foot snake with deadly venom and gaze," Rider stated.

Lancer stopped her efforts, and sat on the bed before looking at the more mature version of herself flatly, and said, "Explain."

Rider's explanation caused Lancer to break down in giggles. She shouldn't be finding the death of a child funny, but the fact that he died by his own 'weapon' tickled her funny bone.

Besides, she really didn't care about any human but her master. The fact that he would have another bodyguard soon in a deadly snake is only a good thing.

At least, she thought, he doesn't go _looking_ for trouble.

She wondered how avenger was doing with the headmaster.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.

The headmaster had his head in his hands. He was grateful that the being in front of him had solved the problem, but the fact that she hadn't even _tried_ to save the boy upset him, but even with her looks, it is exceedingly hard to pin a murder charge on her, as he had no bloody _proof_ beyond a destroyed dark artifact that he did _not_ want to show off.

The description of the diary and it's destruction, as well as the woman being polite enough to hand the remains of it over disturbed him. He had read of such a reaction from a book that he removed from the library.

Of course, there was also another problem, he needed a new professor. There were only a few weeks before Christmas, so he could get away with canceling the classes.

At least he didn't have to worry about trying to subtly steer Harry into a confrontation, as the being known as Voldemort had fled the castle once his host had been killed.

"Thank you for informing me Avenger, I wish you could have saved the boy, but at least the snake is dead," the headmaster stated.

"Actually..." Avenger started, and a stone appeared in Dumbledore's gut. "The snake is alive, and had pledged her loyalty to Rider and I. I ordered it to stop all attacks so don't worry."

Dumbledore sighed, then replied, "as long as the attacks are stopped, I don't care."

With a nod, Avenger left.

Dumbledore, on the other hand, started sending out letters to those he knew, that he was looking for a DADA professor for the rest of the year.

He would have trouble finding a replacement.

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Deep within the inheritance department of Gringotts, a goblin was looking through some papers. While an _individuals_ life was tracked by the hilariously, to goblins, impractical Heartstone, a families bloodline was tracked by a more accurate and useful method.

If the last of the immediate bloodline dies, a piece of parchment catches fire, leaving a bunt imprint of the word, Ended behind. This of course only happens if the head, his/her siblings, parents, and all children die.

The parchment representing the Malfoy line just ignited. Lucius had left everything to his son, and his wife was taken care of as a courtesy, but she would never have inherited the fortune and property without being labeled as heir in a will.

So the goblin in charge of the account started preparing several documents, including the eviction of the Malfoy widow, as she doesn't have the permission of the new owner of the property to live there, denying her access to the Malfoy vault, and transferring the contents of said vault to the new owner's... the Blacks, and without the permission of the head of house black, or the heir, she would be denied access to the vaults, since she married into another family.

Narcissa Malfoy will be having a rough time of it when the documents are delivered.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.

End chapter.

EN: I did NOT mean for the fight to be anti-climatic, but it ended up that way.


	11. Chapter 11: Aftermath

Harry and the Botched Cult Ritual

 **A Derivative idea for this fic** : instead of Harry getting the Medusas, he gets all of the Grand Order Elizabeths. Or the Artorias. But I think It'll be cuter with the Elizabeths. Probably not going to do it, but I had to get it off my chest.

 _ **Special Reviewer Thanks**_ : Dragon Man 180, for the idea on who the next DADA professor will be!

AN: I'm shocked that nobody complained about chamber battle!

AN2: remember Harry is being snubbed by his house, so he's not going to get on the team, especially not a year below the minimum age. Unless something changes, that's going to still be the case for a while.

Chapter 11: Aftermath.

Narcissa Malfoy was sitting on the ground in shock. Her husband was dead, that she had already known, but now she knew her son was as well, and what really put the finish on her crappy day was that she was being evicted from her home.

Evicted because her husband made it clear in his will that she was _not_ to inherit the estate, and it passed to her son, who is now dead.

She was allowed to collect her jewelry and money so she had some for the road, as well as clothes, and other necessities. Unfortunately, she had no real place to go, she didn't have many friends, and none that would put her up on a semi-permanent basis while she got her feet under her, she didn't have permission from the head of the black family to return to her families ancestral home.

She needed to find a place to live, and some work, and perhaps a husband later, she was, after all, a pureblood woman, who had been widowed by circumstances beyond her control.

Apparating to Diagon she wandered the alley for a while to calm her nerves, not shopping since she had to conserve her funds.

Frowning she considered her options and realized she had few. She could check with the ministry, and perhaps get a job there, but last she heard they were pretty filled up, and she felt she deserved better than a low ranked position.

She paused in her thought suddenly, as the front page of a daily prophet caught her eye.

 **DADA PROFESSOR DIES AT HOGWARTS!**

Smirking she used a few knuts to buy the paper, and read it, after she was done she smirked. She now had a job to apply for, and she had never heard of the curse killing two professors in one year, in fact, in the last forty years, there have only been two or three deaths at all.

And the replacement professor, the last time it happened near the middle of the year, lasted both the remaining part of that year, and the whole of the next one, which would give her free room, board, a paycheck for a year and a half, and a chance to find out how her son had been killed in 'the safest place in England.'

Or, if she could somehow bypass the curse, longer. She did have an outstanding in the subject after all.

Plan set, she went back to the Leaky Cauldron to make a floo call.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.

Dumbledore was sitting back in his chair thinking. So many plots have been derailed by the fact that Harry got engaged and is living with the three females, and in the Dursley house to boot.

He paused a second, why were they living there? The place would be cramped beyond belief with six people living there, after all, there were only four bedrooms and one bathroom.

Frowning he picked up a piece of paper that he was debating sending. It was to start court proceedings to get Harry away from those women, at least until he was old enough to marry them. He could at least get Harry away from them during the summer. The problem with this strategy is that it is heavy-handed, Harry would be angry at him, possibly for years.

This would make attempts to influence Harry for the greater good nearly impossible.

The other problem with the plan was that the chances of it working is slim. He would be essentially asking the courts to get rid of three live in magical guardians for one that wouldn't live with him.

That complicated things greatly.

The fact that he was engaged to the three was another obstacle, and he had no right to interfere with the engagement.

Then his fireplace turned green, which indicated an incoming floo call.

He was shocked to see Narcissa Malfoy's head appear in his fireplace.

"Mrs. Malfoy, a pleasure to see you, what do I owe the pleasure?" Dumbledore asked politely.

"May I come through? I have a solution to a problem you have, as well as one I have."

After adjusting the connection to allow the woman to get through, he asked, "and what is this solution to our mutual problem?"

"I need a job after I was kicked out of the Malfoy Manor, you need a Defense professor, I had an outstanding in the subject, and kept in practice. Given how the DADA curse has acted so far, I should be able to stay for a year and a half," Mrs. Malfoy stated bluntly.

Dumbledore thought for a second, to tell the truth, the only downside was that she was both born to, and married into, a dark family.

On the other hand, he needed a replacement and getting one a mere day after the situation arose was a godsend. Taking his time he picked up a book that was on his desk, it was the ledger for the schools finances, which due to his frugal nature, and the fact that he had cut classes from the students, meant that there was plenty of excess money, enough to buy whatever books the new DADA professor needed the students to have.

"What books will you need, and how soon can you start?" Dumbledore asked.

Narcissa blinked, and replied, "Give me a day to look through Flourish and Blotts to decide on the proper books, and then I can start immediately."

Dumbledore quickly wrote something out, and then gave the letter to the woman, and replied, "Find the books, and give this, along with the titles for each year, they will deliver enough for the students to Hogwarts. I will have Quarrels rooms cleared out in an hour for you to move in, anything else you need?" (EN)

"Yes, how the hell did my son die in what you call 'the safest place in England?'" she asked with narrowed eyes.

Dumbledore reordered his thoughts and decided to give a mostly true account of what happened.

"Your son came to school with a cursed book, it started to eat his life force, and also unleashed a basilisk in the school. The people who stopped the book did so too late to save your son."

"May I see the book?" Narcissa asked tersely.

The old man hesitated for a second, then pulled out a book, the second he did the woman screamed in fury.

"That unmitigated bastard, how dare he give that to my husband!"

"What do you mean?" Dumbledore asked with narrowed eyes.

"My husband was a death eater, you know this. He came home one day and gloated that his master gave him that to protect."

"It will not affect your employment, but are _you_ marked?" Dumbledore asked.

"No, and I wasn't asked."

Dumbledore smiled and said, I hope you will have a nice year teaching, I don't suppose you know anything else he gave his followers to protect?"

"Actually... yes, my sister got some sort of cup or chalice she put in her vault," with that comment she returned to the Leaky Cauldron, to pack and choose her books.

Dumbledore frowned, he hoped he was wrong about what the book was, and that Tom wasn't insane enough to make more than one, but if he was, he at least had an idea on where the second would be.

Time to do some research, and find out if there was some law or other that he could use to get the cup.

That was later, now he had to decide on whether or not to send the damn document.

A few minutes later he shook his head and decided to decide later.

He had several other cards he could play, some that would have less of an impact on the relationship with the boy than bringing them to court, when he only had a slim chance of winning.

Perhaps he should get Sirius out of prison, he wondered why the man was there in the first place, he didn't recall a trial for him at all, and he missed out on many of the papers during that time due to the fact he was too busy with the trials taking place and setting up the now destroyed protections on Harry, the marriage contract that he apparently screwed up on, helping his supporters get back on their feet, and various other government and school-related issues.

He had been, for those first six months running on between three and five hours of sleep a night, nutrient potions, pepper up potions, and a good meal every other day, so he lost track of many things. The fact that the man hadn't reclaimed Harry was due to, in his mind, a rather neat spell to repel Mr. Black from the area.

Shaking his head he made a note to track the man down, as Harry's godfather, he had full rights to take care of him.

Sighing he made a note to add the book purchases to the schools budget and turned his attention to a law that the new leader of the dark faction had proposed, his work is never done.

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Harry was reading a book on magic, not the school magics, but the book on the animagis transformation.

It looked like an interesting ability, one that if mastered could be used for fun or defense.

Fun if he gets something harmless or fun to do, defense if it's dangerous, small enough to hide with, and/or venomous.

He would have to ask professor McGonagall about the steps, as he didn't want to perform the steps without help unless he couldn't get help.

Shaking his head he decided that, since the meditation step was, according to the book, completely safe, he would at least start that step.

Closing his eyes, he felt inside himself.

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Three hours later Lancer came in, and noting how he was still meditating, and put her hand on his shoulder.

Startled out of his meditation he took a swing at the person grabbing a hold of him, only to become sheepish when he saw it was lancer.

"Sorry," Harry mumbled.

"It's fine, what were you working on?" Lancer asked, "It's dinner time and since you haven't shown up, I came to get you."

"Animagis transformation, well the meditation step at least," Harry answered while gesturing to the book near him, he then started, "Dinner time? I've been meditating for three hours already?"

His rumbling stomach gave him the answer, so he stood up with Lancer's help since he was stiff from sitting in a meditative pose for the last three hours. "Thanks for coming to get me, Lancer. By the way, do you know what Avenger and Rider were up to yesterday? I had a feeling they were doing _something_ just not what."

"Just taking care of what was causing the deaths and petrifactions," the young-looking servant answered off offhandedly. Noting the look on her master's face, lancer quickly added, "they were in no danger, and solved the issue."

Harry sighed and rubbed his head. He didn't want to treat them as actual servants, but he wanted to at least be informed about their actions if only to be prepared for the fallout, so he sent through his mental connection to all three of them, _"Could you_ please _tell me when you are going to take action? I promise to_ not _get involved when there isn't any other choice, but I would rather_ know _what you do, so I can be prepared for the fallout. On the other hand, good job on being proactive!"_

" _Sorry master,"_ Rider sent back, _"I'll tell you the next time there's an issue we are moving against."_

" _Is this a bad tie to mention I visited the third-floor corridor and took what was there, behind some rather easy protections?"_ Avenger asked.

" _When?"_ Harry asked.

" _During your first potion lesson. I wanted to make sure what was there isn't a threat, and wouldn't become one. The good news is that I have something to help heal you if mortally wounded, a way to make money, and an enhanced lifespan if you want it."_

" _What the_ hell _was in that corridor"_ Lancer, Rider, and Harry asked almost simultaneously.

" _The philosopher's stone,"_ came Avenger's blunt reply.

…

…

…

silence...

That was the response.

" _ **WHAT?!"**_ Came the simultaneous response, the mental yell was loud enough to rattle Avenger's brain.

" _Not so 'loud' please, I have a headache now."_

" _Sorry, we were just shocked, do you know how to use it?"_ Harry asked.

" _Mostly, I know_ how _to make the Elixir of Life, but I haven't yet made it, and making gold is_ slow _. At least right now."_

" _I don't care that you took it, something like that shouldn't have been in the school in the first place, now I'm heading to supper,"_ the male in the relationship said.

And so he and Lancer headed down, amicably chatting with all three servants.

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In many dimensions, Draco's death would have caused a major upheaval in Slytherin, as he would be considered a major power due to his father's power.

Fortunately for that house, he had already been regulated into a nonentity, so with the exception of a handful of souls, his death meant nearly nothing, and so life went on for the majority of that house.

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In Gryffindor a young redhead was being snubbed by the majority of his house, he had acted excited to hear that a 'slimy snake' had perished, even though he was still a child, few among his house agreed with him that it was something to celebrate.

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The rest of the houses didn't really care at all beyond being sad at the death of a fellow student, and some had to dig deep to get even that much sympathy.

At the head table, most of the professors were morose, while one was angry, he had an out to protect his godson, but he had failed. It probably wasn't his fault, but he felt that he should have noticed something earlier.

It was too late for regrets, although he wondered how he will deal with Narcissa Malfoy when she tracks him down after the school year was over.

Unknown to him, he would have less than a day to prepare his response.

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End chapter.

EN: I am having the school cover the cost of the new books because I couldn't see them demanding the students buy new ones in the middle of the school year.


End file.
